The recent appointment of a female alto to St. Paul’s Cathedral choir seems like a victory for female choral scholars across the capital.

Yet sopranos are still excluded from the choir, with the high line of music being sung by young boys.

The woman picked to sing in the all-male choir at St Paul’s is Carris Jones, a highly experienced alto in both opera and choral music.

This means that she has a lower woman’s voice – the equivalent in pop music would be Adele or Beyoncé. 

But there’s still no space for sopranos – women with a high voice like Mariah Carey – or young girls in the cathedral choir.

Choral expert Ralph Allwood MBE says “choirs that exclude women will say it’s a matter of blend. But I’ve always had male and female altos and no one’s ever said my choirs don’t blend.

Girl and boy choristers also blend well and I like having a boys’ and a girls’ choir for the treble line.”

The exclusion of women and girls is a similar story across London’s most famous choirs. Westminster Abbey actually has a royal charter decreeing an all male choir – the only person who could change this set-up is the queen herself. 

Now that St Paul’s has taken the first steps to include women in its choirs, we asked the cathedral’s children’s director, Tom Daggett, when we could expect girl choristers joining the boys on an official basis.

“Chapter is considering this question but we have no timescale at the moment. Through our schools work, however, we enjoy hearing girls sing in the Cathedral already. We also have the Hackney Children’s Choir who sing with the boy choristers a few times a term, as well as adult sopranos who sing in the Cathedral Consort.”

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