Cathedral Choir

An artist-first community where you can feel at home, heal your soul, nurture your voice, and share your creativity.

For over a century, the First Church Cathedral Choir has led the congregation in regular Sunday services and special events, and remains one of L.A.’s best kept artistic secrets.  Today’s Cathedral Choir includes professional artists from L.A.’s robust vocal, theater, and film worlds in addition to avocational singers whose professionalism and insight from their unique careers helps to create the essential core of the Cathedral Choir community.  Singers looking to hone and share their developed talents sing alongside those who are newly exploring the vocal arts.  Each voice shares in the leadership of the ensemble, coalescing their perspective and life wisdom into a cohesive whole.  The Cathedral Choir is a welcoming group, and celebrates the diversity of race, creed, and identity that make up the ever-growing ensemble. See the Music & Arts page for more information about joining the Cathedral Choir. Here is why this artistic community’s unique experiences may be calling you.

Compassion-Focused, Artist-Centered Rehearsals

Our rehearsals are compassion-focused and artist-centered. We choose to elevate the individual by creating a corporate space in which each member can bring the fullness of their voice while they grow, heal, and thrive. We recognize that traditional artistic and spiritual experiences are often laden with elements of judgment and pressure that lead to suffering among the very people who are there to share from places of vulnerability. Operating from the scientific definition of compassion written by researcher Paul Gilbert, we maintain ”a sensitivity to suffering in self and others with a commitment to try and alleviate and prevent it.” Rehearsals are structured in ways that prioritize the individual’s creative exploration. Individuals are invited, through various points of entry, to share themselves with the whole. The result leads to amplified flow, integrated emotion, and musical excellence. Rehearsal processes, repertoire, and activities grow from this place, yielding lasting connections that feed the group’s artistry. Listen to Music and Arts Director, David Harris, and Laude member Laurel Irene explore this idea in their podcast Underground Ictus at the link below.

Community You Can Trust, Artistic Fulfillment You Can Count On

Every week the Cathedral Choir sings significant music with stylistic sensitivity and emotional intention. Simultaneously, the group prepares for regular concert-length events throughout the year. Leaders from across L.A.’s music landscape help to create the momentum and stability necessary to enjoy this speed of acquisition musically and emotionally. The community actively practices non-judgment in rehearsals, and explores music from creative, artist-first perspectives that gives space for each individual to shape their personal goals for their musical experience. These practices elicit bonds of trust among the singers, helping to bolster and inspire confidence in one another and in each individual’s musical contributions. 

Major Performances

The Cathedral Choir performs major events throughout the year including our Christmas in the Cathedral Christmas Eve services, our annual MLK celebration concert, the Great Works on the Great Organs concert, All Saint’s Day concert, Holy Thursday Choral Communion, and periodic concerts as a feature within Sunday services. Concerts are often performed with the addition of orchestral musicians. Past concerts have included Vivaldi’s Gloria, Mozart’s Requiem, Haydn’s Creation, the premiere of Patrick Cassidy’s The Mass with Martin Sheen as narrator, Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem, Faure’s Requiem, Bach’s Magnificat, and a concert of women composers of the Italian Baroque. To see upcoming concert events, visit fccla.org/music.

Voice Science

Music and Arts Director David Harris and his wife and Laude member Laurel Irene are leading voices in the application of voice science for individuals and ensembles. Through their website voicescienceworks.org they help to translate complicated science into practical tools for exploring the voice. Rehearsals at First Church lean on this body of understanding by making the rehearsal a playground of exploration. Singers are encouraged to explore new sounds and are offered immediate tools, steeped in a measurable understanding of the vocal mechanism, to discover newness in themselves. This combination of scientific rigor and playful exploration create a leveling agent, bringing the ensemble closer together in their search for sounds. Avocational singers and professionals alike enjoy the attention given to their voice and the space to develop new vocal tools over time.

A Place For New Music

The choirs at First Church premiere new pieces regularly, working closely with composers to craft their compositions and give life to them. There is nothing quite like process of creating new music. Bringing ones self into the excitement and personal agency of newness enlivens and empowers. New works also address today’s questions, bringing current commentary and wisdom to us regularly. We have premiered or performed second readings of pieces by Judy A. Rose, Damien Geter, Jonathan David, Kelly McCandless, David García Saldaña, Brent Michael Davids, Fahad Siadat, Amy Gordon, Joseph Rubenstein, Molly Pease, David Saul Lee, James Hayden, David Harris, and many others, and embarked on large-scale pieces like Patrick Cassidy’s The Mass, and Nick Strimple’s Prayers In A Time Of Plague. Many of the Cathedral Choir members are composers who bring their creative visions to share throughout the year. First Church is the home to the annual NEO Voice Festival, a festival dedicated to writing and performing new music for the voice. (link to neovoicefestival.com)

Equity, Inclusion, Diversity and Justice

At First Church, we experience the divine as love, reaching out with compassion to open our doors wide for all who would enter. Equity, inclusivity, diversity, and justice are goals that we strive toward and hold in front of us as motivators. We recognize that these goals are never fully attained, and try to assume a listening posture when leading. The programming of music from contemporary composers of different backgrounds, exploring stylistic elements of music and their emotional counterparts that allow us to begin to appreciate the experiences of those that created music from their personal lives, and programming underrepresented composers across time with a focus on women, people of color, and the LGBTQI+ communities are a few ways in which we publicly express our motivation for a more equitable, inclusive, diverse and just society. At First Church all are welcome. 

Individual Spirituality, Corporate Artistry

The First Church services are traditionally crafted in a high worship mold that articulates the glorious space of the FCCLA Cathedral and focuses those present on the grandeur of the moment. The services are carefully crafted each week to illuminate spiritual opportunities for those participants to discover in themselves. We strive to create spaces for personal growth and exploration rather than telling people what to believe or feel. The Cathedral Choir plays a central role in the services, giving voice to the goals for each Sunday and sharpening spiritual moments through emotionally-informed musical presentations.

There are few experiences as uplifting as singing with The Great Organs and collaborating vocally with Dr. Bull, whose creativity and sensitivity feed the choir every week. On any given Sunday, music from the classical choral canon of Bach, Pergolesi, Beach, Price, Brahms, Bernstein, Dawson, and others can be heard intermingled with music from around the world, popular music, and contemporary compositions.  The Cathedral Choir actively seeks to promote less-represented demographics whose spiritual message adds richness to the diverseness of worshippers at First Church.  Participating in the musical leadership at First Church brings joy, passion, fulfillment, excitement, community, skill development, and fun to each members’ life.  

YouTube and Christmas Radio

You can listen to the Cathedral Choir and Laude on our YouTube channel by listening to services, or hearing individual musical excerpts.

Each year we add to our list of holiday classics. For holiday cheer, you can listen to the curated Christmas Radio or poke around on our more elaborate Christmas playlist.