By Jeremy Pound

Published: Tuesday, 09 November 2021 at 12:00 am


We put this list of the world’s greatest choirs together and then immediately questioned whether we’d been too Britain-centric, because of the sheer number of UK choirs we’d picked out. Having looked at a few more of these kinds of lists from around the internet, it does indeed seems to be a running theme – British vocal ensembles dominate.

What is it that makes them stand out from the bunch? Our ancient choral traditions and Oxbridge college choirs definitely play their part. Despite our shortcomings in other areas of musical education, clearly we’re doing something right with choral music. There are a wealth of vastly different choirs included in our line-up, from the more traditional cathedral choirs to ancient Eastern European choirs. 

The best choirs in the world

Escolania de Montserrat