Music at St Giles’
A Centre of Musical Excellence
St Giles’ is renowned for its exceptional acoustics and the high standard of liturgical and secular music it hosts.
Our Parish Eucharist is rich with music, led by a professional quartet of singers and accompanied by one of the two magnificent organs in the body of the church. The congregation joins in for hymns, psalms, and the sung mass. Services also include a prelude and postlude played on either of the Grand or Chancel organs, and somtimes both.
Our church also hosts a rich curriculum of concerts. You can visit our events page to see what’s on. If you’re interested in hiring our church for a musical event, details can be found here.
Specifications for our two performance organs, practice organ, Steinway grand, and bells can be found here.
Royal College of Organists Academy Organ School (RCOAOS)
St. Giles’ Cripplegate has been internationally renowned as a centre for organ study since 1992, when an organ school was founded here.
The organ school was subsumed into the Royal College of Organists in 2012 and now has over a thousand graduates.
Thanks to a sustained fundraising campaign 2000-8 led by the Friends, St. Giles’ has three first-class pipe organs, in constant use by students and their teachers. RCOAOS runs throughout the year and holds a summer course attracting students from across the world. The largest of the three organs was a trailblazing instrument when installed in St Giles in 1969, incorporating historic material in a new and unique design. The instrument has been recorded by the BBC and used by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Singers and many other first-class professional musical organisations for concerts and recordings at the church. It is an integral part of the life and worship at St Giles and is in daily use, for lessons, practice, recordings, rehearsals, concerts and services.
Friends of St Giles’
Joining the Friends of St Giles’ will help maintain the building and its organs, preserving its historic fabric and nationally significant musical tradition. We value your support and involvement irrespective of which membership group you wish to subscribe to.
There are three groups of individual members, whose names recall the professional, craft and artistic history of the parish echoed in its street names. The only difference is the level of the annual subscription for each group.
£100.00 – Silk
£50.00 – Fann
£20.00 – Fortune
We value your support and involvement irrespective of which membership group you wish to subscribe to. If you are able to commit to giving more, it would be very gratefully received.
The links below specify your rights to privacy, how to join the Friends online, and how to join by Post. To join by Post, please print out the form, complete it, and mail it to The Executive Secretary, Friends of St Giles', St Giles Church, Fore Street, London EC2Y 8DA, UK.
Our musicians
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Anne Marsden Thomas
DIRECTOR OF MUSIC
Anne has been Director of Music at St Giles' since 1980. She founded St. Giles International Organ School in 1992 and directed it until January 2012 when it became part of the education programme of RCO Academy. For many years she also directed the annual RCO Academy Summer Course for Organists in the City of London which regularly attracted 60-75 students from around the world. She is widely known for her work as organ teacher, concert organist and church musician. Her concert and teaching work has taken her to the USA, Japan, Europe and all over the UK, and she has made several commercial recordings. She has written and edited many books for organists, published by Oxford University Press, Cramer Music and the Royal School of Church Music. She has wide experience of examining grade examinations and diplomas. As well as teaching students of all standards, Anne enjoys training organ teachers.
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Elizabeth Day
ORGANIST
Elizabeth was educated in Scotland and attended Dundee University where she read mathematics as well holding the post of Assistant Organist of Dundee Cathedral. After graduating she trained as a primary school teacher and has taught in schools in Dundee, Edinburgh and Switzerland.
Whilst working in Edinburgh, she started taking organ lessons with Anne Marsden Thomas. She has given many solo recitals including at Oxford Town Hall, St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, and Lichfield Cathedral as well as at several churches in London.
She lives in South London with her husband and daughter.
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Penny Sharpe
SOPRANO
Penny was born in Tasmania where she trained at the Conservatorium. After singing in the Lyric Opera Company, Brisbane, she joined the Song Company (an a capella ensemble specialising in early and contemporary music) in Sydney. With the Song Company she was involved in festivals, concerts, recordings, children's concerts and live broadcasts on national radio, plus tours of South Korea and New Zealand and throughout Australia. Currently she earns a regular salary working in market research, primarily in wine and spirits, while taking professional singing engagements on a part-time basis. Her clear, warm voice is supported by a flawless technique and perfect intonation
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Amanda Dean
ALTO
Amanda began singing in choirs as a child, conducted by Ronald Corp and Ralph Allwood. She read Music at Cambridge University where she was a choral scholar at Trinity College.
Since then she has sung mostly contemporary classical music. Stage projects include roles in Stockhausen’s Mittwoch as part of 2012’s Cultural Olympiad (with helicopters and a camel) and Birtwistle’s The Minotaur for the Royal Opera House (drenched in stage blood). Amanda continues to enjoy ensemble and choral singing. She has sung on many film soundtracks with London Voices, including several of the Star Wars and Harry Potter films.
Amanda also has a qualification in tax, and about half her working time is spent writing about tax, and preparing tax returns for clients working in the arts. She is happy with either a music score or the latest tax legislation. She also composes when she has time (so not very much) and runs a girls’ choir at a local school.
Amanda is an impeccable sight-reader and instantly adapts her vocal quality to whatever repertoire she is singing, whether it is Palestrina, McDowall, or anything in between.
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Robin Whitehouse
TENOR
Robin studied voice and horn for a year at the Royal College of Music before reading maths at Oxford University. Whilst at Oxford he sang and played with all the major university choirs and orchestras, and continued to sing with the choir of St Mary the Virgin (the University church) until taking up his post at St Giles.Operatic roles have included Alfredo (La Traviata), Abinadab (world premiere of Sam Hogarth’s David and Goliath with New Chamber Opera and most recently Prince Ramiro (La Cenerentola).
Solo engagements have included Evangelist in Bach’s Passions, Mendelssohn’s Elijah and Britten’s Serenade, Nocturne and St Nicolas, as well as Strauss’s 2nd Horn Concerto and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.1. He was recently invited to take part in a public masterclass on Mahler songs with the Oxford University Orchestra, taken by Ian Bostridge. He currently studies with Ann de Renais. Robin has an extraordinary dynamic range throughout his wide vocal compass.
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Louis Hurst
BASS BARITONE
Louis was the Winner of the Audience Prize at the Fulham Opera Robert Presley Memorial Verdi Prize 2019 and a Finalist for the Wagner Society of England's Singing Competition. Selected to participate in ENO’s Opera Works Programme and with British Youth Opera.
Mancunian-born Louis gained his MMus with Distinction from the RNCM. His studies were made possible by the generous support of Michael Oglesby, the Drapers Guild, and the Musician's Benevolent Fund.
Louis joined St Giles’ choir in 2022, a year in which his roles included Don Pasquale for Hurn Court Opera, Escamillo Carmen for Regents Opera and Sciarrone Tosca for Diva Opera. Louis has worked with many prominent companies including English National Opera, Britten Sinfonia, Zurcher Sing Akadamie, and the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.