Head of Outreach & Choral Education

Based in City of London

Three days per week fixed-term contract for two years

£20,000 per annum

Thank you for your interest in Temple Church and in this new role within the music department. We believe that this is an exciting place to work as a musician, with a wide range of musical performances and projects taking places across the year.

Inspired by an impressive legacy dating back over two hundred years, Temple Church’s Choirs and music department now encompasses a wide range of performance and education programmes across two professional choirs, choristers, concerts, a youth choir, organ recitals, and an expanding outreach programme across London. Temple Church choir consists of sixteen choristers, aged 8-14, who are drawn from a range of London schools, and our adult professional choir, the Temple Singers, is made up of some of London’s finest singers with a top line of sopranos.  

Temple Church, located right in the heart of Legal London, serves the two legal colleges of Inner and Middle Temple, two of the four Inns of Court responsible for calling barristers to the Bar of England and Wales. The Church plays a key role in caring for the Inns’ members and their families, and for all those others — students, pupils, barristers, judges and staff of the Inns who work and live in the Temple.

The choirs perform two choral services per week, alongside many special services, memorials, weddings and an ambitious concert programme. The choirs enjoy a diary of concerts and external engagements both in the church and in other venues. In recent years, the choir has performed new works by composers including Ken Hesketh, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Richard Allain, Anna Semple, and Gareth Treseder.

This role involves working closely with the Temple Church choristers who receive a broad musical education in the English Cathedral tradition but without the need to board or attend a particular school, whilst the lower parts are made up of London’s finest professional adult singers whose careers encompass solo, opera, and consort singing. Now in its fourth year, the choir also offers a choral scholarship programme for four post graduate students, as a bridge to a professional career. Under the direction of Thomas Allery, who became Director of Music in 2023, the choir is committed to widening access to the life enhancing opportunities of singing and of a musical education from a young age and now runs an expanding singing programme to London primary schools.

The Head of Outreach and Choral Education will have the opportunity to work across all of the areas of our musical programme.

We are seeking an outstanding musician, with a broad range of highly developed performance and teaching skills, to play a key role in shaping our schools and community outreach initiatives – as well as supporting our chorister training and organ education programmes.

This is an exciting time to join the music team at Temple Church, which became fully operational as an independent charitable trust in 2024. The Church is looking to build its portfolio of activities and projects and expand into new areas.

We are looking for:

·         Experience in devising and delivering outreach programmes to primary and secondary schools, supporting classroom teachers to lead singing with confidence

·         Outstanding knowledge of the choral music and education sectors

·         Experience in working with children and adults in a choral environment

·         Experience in delivering workshops and projects, from concept to delivery  

·         Exceptional conducting and teaching skills, honed in a similar environment

·         Awareness of the Anglican choral music tradition and liturgy

·         Recognised school teaching experience and/or qualification

·         Available to start in September 2025

How to apply:

Please email your CV and a covering letter of not more than two A4 pages (demonstrating how you meet the role’s essential criteria) to recruitment@innertemple.org.uk by 9AM on Monday 19^th May 2025.

Please email recruitment@innertemple.org.uk if you have any questions about the opportunity.

Shortlisted candidates will be invited for preliminary interview at Temple on Wednesday 28 and Thursday 29 May.

Candidates are welcome to contact Thomas Allery, Director of Music (thomas@templechurch.com) for a conversation about the church and the role.  

For more information click here.