Music is highly valued at our churches: we employ a professional Director of Music, Jeremy Jepson, and host around fifty concerts each year, including the popular and long-established “Tuesdays Till Two” lunchtime concerts and “Piccolo” concerts for pre-school children, as well as concerts organised by outside promoters.

We offer various pathways to children, teenagers and adults to take part in our music-making, through our choral programme and by offering opportunities to contribute instrumental music within our services and at concerts.

Music Contacts

For all enquiries regarding the choirs and instrumental music within our services, please email our Director of Music, Jeremy Jepson.

If you are a singer or musician and would like to perform at one of the concerts promoted by St John’s please contact the Programme Manager, Alun Williams, at stjohnscic@gmail.com

For information about concerts and other events coming up soon at St John’s please visit the St John’s CIC website or the Events At St John’s Facebook page.

If you are interested in hiring St John’s for a concert you will promote yourself
please contact the parish administrator, Duncan Garfield, at office@peterborough-stjohns.org.uk or visit the Church Hire page of this website to find out more.

Junior Choir

We are incredibly proud of our newly-formed (2024) Junior Choir which offers children and teenagers who enjoy singing a chance to learn vocal and musical skills in an enjoyable and purposeful environment. Membership of this growing choir is open to children aged 7 and older. You can read about the benefits of what we offer below:

• • A free musical training, encompassing theory, music reading and musicality
  • Expert vocal and choral training from a highly experienced professional singer and musician
  • Opportunities to sing with other choirs and to share experiences
  • A safe, caring and supportive environment
  • A chance to develop friendships through singing and social activities, including trips to Laser Force, Bowling etc!
  • And last, but not least, pocket money!

To achieve a good standard and to ensure the choir sounds at its best, we have a regular pattern of rehearsals and activity. The general outline is currently as follows:

Sundays: 10:20am rehearsal followed by Sung Eucharist at 11:00am ending at 12:15pm

Twice monthly (currently second and fourth Sunday of the month) the Junior Choir meet for a thirty minute rehearsal after the Sung Eucharist with a focus on developing their singing technique, theory and aural skills.

Extra rehearsals and services are sometimes planned, depending on events and seasons in the church’s calendar.

If your child enjoys music and singing might be interested in joining our Junior Choir, please get in touch with Jeremy, Director of Music, either by an email to to organiststjohns@icloud.com or after a Sunday Eucharist – he will be delighted to hear from you.  You might also like to download our Chorister Recruitment Leaflet.

Adult Choir

Our Adult Choir sings at most of our Sunday Eucharistic services, occasional choral evensongs, and plays a key role in enhancing our liturgies at important times of the year, including Christmas and Holy Week.

The choir’s repertoire encompasses music from the 8th century to the present day and it enjoys the varied and enjoyable challenges that this wide repertoire brings. It offers a great release from the stresses and strains of life and we aim to ensure that singers leave rehearsals and services feeling uplifted, feeling cared for and affirmed. New members are always welcome to this warm and welcoming group, and we’d be delighted to hear from you if you feel that this is something you would like to explore. If you feel you would like to explore this, please contact Jeremy, our Director of Music, either by an email to organiststjohns@icloud.com or after a Sunday Eucharist.

The adult choirs currently rehearses and perform to the following pattern, more details can be confirmed on enquiry.

• •  Each Sunday: 10am rehearsal followed by Sung Eucharist, ending at 12:15pm
  • Second and Fourth Wednesday: 7pm rehearsal at St Luke’s, ending at 8:15pm

About our Director of Music

Jeremy Jepson won a scholarship to study singing with Eric Von Ibler and the organ with David Hamilton at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) where he was a prize-winning student, and subsequently went on to postgraduate singing studies at the Royal College of Music, where he studied with Ashley Stafford and Robin Blaze. Enjoying a varied career as a singer, this work took him to many places including France, Germany, Norway, Sweden and the USA, and he sang on several commercial recordings and appeared as a soloist and choral singer on ITV, BBC TV, BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4.

During his time at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama he was deputy conductor of the Academy Chamber Choir and subsequently conducted and assisted with the choirs of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, Carlisle Cathedral, Southwell Minster and Peterborough Cathedral, all of which he sang with as an Alto Lay Clerk. He was the first professional Director of Music at Northampton Roman Catholic Cathedral where he established a choral programme involving over fifty singers and, for a period, was acting Director of Music at All Saints’, Northampton, overseeing several choirs, a concert series and directing and planning domestic and foreign tours.

As well as directing the two choirs at St John’s, he directs Stamford Choral, a large and thriving choral society that regularly performs large scale works with professional and amateur orchestras and soloists, the St Peter’s Singers, an excellent chamber choir that maintains long standing links with Peterborough Cathedral, and is the resident piano and singing teacher at Malcolm Sargent School in Stamford, as well as maintaining a busy private teaching practice and a large amount of freelance work as an organist and pianist.