Controversy over all-male choir at King’s College Cambridge

King’s College Cambridge has recently sparked controversy among students due to its policy barring female students from joining the infamous King’s College Chapel Choir (KCC).

Following the admission of women to St John’s College chapel choir in 2021, King’s remains the only Cambridge college that excludes women from its chapel choir.

The inclusion of female choristers in historically all-male choirs has been a contested topic across the UK in recent years, with many choirs opening up membership to female singers in recent years, such as St Paul’s Cathedral in London in 2017.

The debate began on Camfess, a popular anonymous Facebook confessions page for students, on the 25th December, with an anonymous student contributor slamming the exclusion of women from KCC as “archaic”, as it denies “50% of the student body from such an opportunity in the name of tradition.”

This sparked a debate on the platform, with others weighing in, both in support of and against the original post.

An initial response to the post labelled King’s policy as “not that deep” as “it’s not like they’re keeping women from academia or any other choirs”. Another post argued that the policy is acceptable as “not every activity has to be for everyone”, and that “it’s not like having a couple male choirs is depriving everyone else of the opportunity at uni.”

These views were soon challenged by others, with one anonymous contributor asserting that the policy is “odd and weird.”

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The anonymous contributor also linked the exclusion of women from King’s choir to the historic “institutionalised exclusion of women at Cambridge” – women were not awarded degrees by Cambridge until 1948, being the final university in the UK to do so, and not admitted as members of King’s College until 1972.

King’s College does have a mixed choir that admits women, King’s Voices (KV), and offers choral exhibitions for female singers of this choir, in place of the choral scholarships it offers to male students of KCC.

There are, however, some disparities between the choirs. For example, performance opportunities are unequal – while KCC features in the iconic BBC ‘Carols from King’s’ programme’, KV does not.

Female students at King’s do have the opportunity to sing for the mixed chapel choirs of other colleges, such as St John’s, which admits around half of its members from other Cambridge colleges. However, for now, the female students at King’s remain unable to sing as equals with their male counterparts at their own college.

In response, King’s stated that “King’s College is aware of the debate around the nature of its choirs and it is for this reason that the College Council set up a Working Group on the College Choirs last year to consider the issues. It is expected to report during this academic year.”