THE CHOIRS
The Choirs of St. Luke's
St. Luke’s has a rich tradition of excellence in the teaching and performance of church music. We have a mixed voice choir of boys, girls, men, and women. The St. Luke’s model of choral singing, in which children sing the soprano (or treble) part, follows the 500-year-old tradition of cathedral choirs in Britain. The choir helps to lead our worship at the 10:00 am Eucharist, as well as Evensong, special services such as Lessons & Carols, and for weddings on request. The St. Luke’s choirs always welcome new members. If you or your child would be interested in learning more about membership in the choirs, please contact the Director of Music.
The Trebles
St. Luke’s youth choir, known as the Trebles, offers an unparalleled opportunity to provide young singers with a free, world-class musical education. As participants, choristers experience the English cathedral model of choral singing as they join the adults in mature, challenging, and rewarding music-making. Our choristers receive musical training in vocal production, sight-reading, music theory, and aural skills in the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) training schema.
The Trebles are a supportive community of peers all committed to the same goal. They sing great works of art and receive opportunities for tours, retreats, and concerts. The skills that these choristers develop last a lifetime and foster growth in other areas of life at a young age: leadership, commitment, focus, attention to detail, patience, teamwork, camaraderie, and a love for service.
Membership in the treble section of the St. Luke’s Choir is open to children Grade 3 and up. Young people whose voices remain soprano remain trebles through high school. Young people whose voices change register may move into the alto, tenor, or bass section once their voices change.
The Trebles rehearse on Mondays at 6:00 – 7:30 pm, Thursdays at 6:30 – 8:00 pm, and each Sunday morning at 8:45 am.
The Altos, Tenors, and Basses (ATBs)
St. Luke’s adult choir, known as the ATBs, consists of singers from all walks of life—students, lawyers, teachers, retirees, and businesspeople, to name a few—who share a fierce dedication to the craft of choral singing in a liturgical context and to each another. They are ordinary people who make extraordinary music. Membership of the Choir is open to anyone who enjoys singing, although some ability to read music is desirable.
The ATBs rehearse on Thursdays at 7:00 – 8:30 pm, and each Sunday morning at 8:45 am.
The St. Cecilia Singers
We are thrilled to announce the St. Cecilia Singers, a reimagined version of the Training Choir. The St. Cecilia Singers is a family choir, inviting people of all ages and abilities to participate. This joyful choir will sing at St. Luke's liturgies periodically throughout the year. We welcome anyone, any family, any child who wants to sing. This includes parents, older siblings who don't want to sing in the Trebles, grandparents, & other members of the St. Luke's community.
Parents may still simply opt to drop off their kids as has been the practice with the Training Choir. There is no obligation for parents to stay and sing! Each rehearsal will include some music theory and plenty of singing. Come as often as your schedule permits to join in the fun and sing along.
The St. Cecilia Singers rehearse on Thursdays from 6:00 – 6:30 pm during the school year.
The Evensong Singers
The Evensong Singers are a complementary choir of adults and teenagers who are unable to commit to the full St. Luke's choir schedule but would still like to sing with the choir on occasion. It can be thought of as a formalization of a practice that has been in place for years -- adults or teens joining in for Evensong services, Lessons and Carols, and other special occasions.
Andrew Lewis, Director of Music
Profiled by John von Rhein in the Chicago Tribune as “the inspiring conductor, scholar, and educator,” Andrew Lewis is Director of Music & Choirmaster at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Evanston, Artistic Director of Bella Voce and the Bella Voce Sinfonia, Music Director of the Elgin Master Chorale, Artistic Director of Opus 327 NFP, a member of the conducting faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and is Assistant Conductor of the Chicago Symphony Chorus. He has been a guest lecturer at Concordia University Chicago, Loyola University Chicago, the Lectures in Church Music series, Garrett Theological Seminary, and formerly taught the conducting course at DePaul University. He has been a guest conductor with the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus and has appeared on several occasions as a guest conductor with the Elgin Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Lewis’s performances with Bella Voce, the Elgin Master Chorale, and the Elgin Symphony have been broadcast nationally on WFMT 98.7. He has music degrees from Northwestern University and the Eastman School of Music. Mr. Lewis has three sons who are growing up in the music program at St. Luke’s and, like the other parents, is daily in awe of and grateful for the tremendously positive impact this rigorous program and nurturing community has had on his children.
Peter Morey, Organist
Peter is an emerging sacred musician from Baltimore, Maryland, and was recently named one of the Organ Historical Society’s E. Power Biggs Scholars. In the Fall of 2021, Peter began his studies for the Doctor of Musical Arts in Organ Performance and Literature at the University of Illinois under Dr. Dana Robinson. He also holds a Master of Music in Sacred Music from East Carolina University and the Colleague Certification from the American Guild of Organists.
Accepted on a merit scholarship at the age of sixteen, Mr. Morey received a Bachelor of Music degree from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. While there, he studied oboe performance, music education, and conducting. A latecomer to the organ, Peter began his studies there with Donald Sutherland. During his time there, he was the recipient of the Harold Randolph Prize in Performance and can be heard playing English Horn on Peabody’s recent CD of works by Kevin Puts, conducted by Marin Alsop and released by NAXOS Records.
In 2017, Peter was organ scholar for the Royal School of Church Music training course in Charlotte, NC. Later that summer, he began serving as the first Organ & Choirmaster Fellow at Christ Church, Raleigh. At the encouragement of Prof. Andrew Scanlon, Peter began a Master of Music in Sacred Music degree at East Carolina University in Fall 2019. There, he held the Clay J.H. Endowed Organ Scholarship and was inducted into Pi Kappa Lambda, the Music Honors Society. From 2019-2021, Peter served as the Cathee Jean Huber Organ Scholar at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Greenville, NC, working with Prof. Scanlon on the parish’s magnificent C.B. Fisk Opus 126 organ.