St Andrew’s, Handsworth has a long music tradition dating back to the opening of the church in the early part of the twentieth century. The church has excellent acoustics and is particularly well suited to vocal/ choral concerts.

Our principal Sunday service is a Sung Mass and at the present time we use the ‘Thorne in D’ setting.

We have on other occasions used more traditional setting such Mozart, Schubert and Palestrina and also have taken the opportunity to sing some modern settings such as Karl Jenkins’ ‘The Armed Man’ and ‘Communion in D’ set to music by Stuart Jeffs.

Choir

The church has a traditional, robed, parish Choir whose primary function is to lead the sung mass worship at the main service on Sunday at 10.00 am.

Back in the early part of the twentieth century, the choir consisted of Men and Boys as was common at the time,

Today, the choir consists of a cross section of age groups and is structured using the traditional ‘SATB’ voices. The choir sing and perform traditional, classical and modern works and rehearse and sing a liturgically suitable anthem each Sunday.

Organ

The church has a two manual pipe organ by William Bird and Sons of Selly Park. A specification of the organ can be found on the National Pipe Organ Register.