Choir Names
  • Aaron
    Posts: 110
    I am in the midst of reorganizing our 2 adult choirs, adult handbell choir, children's choir, funeral choir, and children's handbell choirs in our parish and am looking at renaming all or some of the choirs. The existing names- Chorale and Ensemble Singers doesn't really reflect the music that they now sing. Calling an adult choir by its time slot- 9 AM Choir, doesn't sound the best to me but neither does calling one the parish choir when I have two adult choirs. The children's choir is currently called the Angel Choir which I think dissuades some boys from joinging. I know some parishes use Saint names- St. Cecilia Choir or St. Gregory Choir. Latin titles would probably not go over well here. What do you use? Any thoughts?
  • Carl DCarl D
    Posts: 992
    Surprisingly, our parish choirs have elected for Latin names, even though getting them to SING Latin is ... a challenge. So don't necessarily throw that out.

    You could set up some requirements (one or two words, respectful, Catholic heritage, whatever) and then let people in the choirs nominate some names. I'm not sure I'd put it to a democratic vote, though, it might be better to just make the choices yourself.
  • rogue63
    Posts: 410
    I have two children's choirs----boys and girls----and I simply stole my name ideas from a few Anglican/Episcopal churches I know about: the boys are the St. Nicholas Choir and the girls are the St. Cecilia choir. I find that boys are especially enamored of St. Nicholas after hearing the gruesome story about resurrecting the three boys from the pickling tub, and most girls are equally enamored of St. Cecilia after hearing about her devotion to Christ and martyrdom. When they sing together (Christmas, Easter, special events, etc.) I put them under the patronage of St. Gregory the Great, and call them the St. Gregory Choir. At each rehearsal and after each Mass, we always pray together and invoke our patrons---St. Nicholas, St. Cecilia and St. Gregory. Angel Choir-----yeah, that might not draw boys in, unless you call it the St. Michael the Archangel Prince of the Heavenly Armies Choir----seriously. No reason to hide the militant and robust aspects of faith from our children.

    I also have a men's schola----Manus Damiani (the men of St. Damien of Molokai----also translates as Hand of St. Damien). We all pretty quickly agreed on a Latin name and our parish patron, so that was easy. I'll agree with Carl that too much democracy leads to too many chiefs and not enough Indians, so be careful about taking nominations or votes. A choir's identity is important of course, and so the singers must be unified under one vision, one director.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    I'm starting a children's choir at my parish and (taking a cue from the Hogwart's house rivalry in Harry Potter) planning to split the single choir into two teams (which can earn points and rewards for good behavior and so forth).
    Girls v. Boys is a non-strater, since the girls would always win in good-behavior competition, so labeling them Gregory and Cecilia (my first thought) would never work (even as a progressive feminist, I have to be realistic about the fact that 9-yr old boys don't want to be on the Cecilia team).

    So, taking a cue from the (apocryphal?) origin of Antiphonal singing, I'm planning to name the two sides the Ambrose and Augustine choirs.
    I'm also hoping to dress the two sides in different color robes (Red for Ambrose, Blue for Augustine) and have as a weekly reward that I will wear at Mass a necktie of the "winning" team's color.

    (That's the plan, anyway. I'll let y'all know how it works out.)
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    Great idea.
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    I dunno about you guys, Adam and Noel, but if the choice was between the St. Monica Choir and St. Augustine Choir, I'd wanna be in Monica's joint; when Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!
  • Dove
    Posts: 16
    For your funeral choir you could do [name of church] Requiem Mass Schola. That's what I do, anyhow.
  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,114
    @Dove, good idea. None of this "resurection choir" stuff.

    And the best part about having the music the church wants? No need to learn new music last-minute for funerals, unless of course you get a request for polyphonic mass instead of a chanted Mass. :)
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    Requiem Choirs really serve the family, but also singers who cannot drive at night...
  • ChaedatylChaedatyl
    Posts: 45
    We have five choirs, some have Latin names, some have patron saint's names:

    St. Gregory is our adult OF choir
    St. Peter in Chains is our EF choir (St. Peter is the patron of our church, and we have (I think) one of the only stained glass windows of St. Peter in captivity in the U.S.
    Chorus Spes Ecclesiae is our OF children's choir. Very fitting, I think.

    The above three were chosen by our former pastor. I chose the names of our two new choirs:
    Chorus Veritatis Splendor, our motet choir that sings "fancy" stuff for special occasions, Tallis, Byrd, Palestrina, etc. We jokingly called this choir "Chorus Sine Nomine" until I chose the current name.

    The last choir is our new Spanish Youth choir, "Chorus Rosa Mystica".Our pastor is very devoted to Our Lady, and wanted one of her names from the Litany. We also have a large window in the choir loft depicting Our Lady putting the roses in Juan Diego's cloak. Thus, I thought "Mystical Rose" would be a good fit for the Spanish youth.
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