Choir
A choir, chorale, or chorus is a musical en-
semble of singers. Choral Music, in turn, is
the music written specifically for such an en-
semble to perform.
A body of singers who perform together is
called a choir or chorus, The former term is
very often applied to groups affiliated with a
church (whether or not they actually occupy
the choir) and the second to groups that per-
form in theatres or concert halls, but this dis-
tinction is far from rigid. "Choir" has the sec-
ondary definition of a subset of an ensemble;
thus one speaks of the "woodwind choir" of
an orchestra, or different "choirs" of voices
and/or instruments in a polychoral composi-
tion. In typical 18th to 20th century oratorios
and masses, chorus or choir is usually under-
stood to imply more than one singer per part,
in contrast to the quartet of soloists also fea-
tured in these works.
Evensong in the quire of the York Minster,
showing carved choirstalls.
Structure of choirs
Choirs are often led by a conductor or choir-
master. Most often choirs consist of four sec-
tions intended to sing in four part harmony,
but there is no limit to the number of possible
parts as long as there is a singer available to
sing the part: Thomas Tallis wrote a 40-part
motet entitled Spem in alium, for eight choirs
of five parts each; Krzysztof Penderecki’s
Stabat Mater is for three choirs of 16 voices
each, a total of 48 parts. Other than four, the
most common number of parts are three,
five, six and eight.
Choirs can sing with or without instru-
mental accompaniment. Singing without ac-
companiment is called a cappella singing (al-
though the American Choral Directors Asso-
ciation[1] discourages this usage in favor of
"unaccompanied", since a cappella denotes
singing "as in the chapel" and much unac-
companied music today is secular). Accompa-
nying instruments can consist of practically
any instruments, from one to a full orchestra;
for rehearsals a piano or organ accompani-
ment is often used even if a different instru-
mentation is planned for performa