Following Seas, The

The Following Seas shanty group was formed in 2022 to provide music for the visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury to Fairwinds Mission Centre and more generally to the Shanty Festival that year. In the end, he didn’t show up, but the choir still sang. Following this slightly ill-omened beginning, the group has reformed for this year, but now to take part in the festival more generally.

The group ranges in age from 20s through to 70s, and while many of its members are associated with music-making in King Charles the Martyr Church in the centre of Falmouth, not all are. The group’s unique selling-point(s) are its inclusion of new arrangements of existing shanties that combine folk and jazz vibe, of classical songs with a nautical flavour (including solos) and a rigorous approach to harmony that sees the group split occasionally into as many as 8 parts.

The group consists of highly skilled and experienced singers from various choirs both at the church and further afield. Some are returning singers who have moved on to pastures new, including a former KCM choir member who is now a member of Lincoln Cathedral choir. In 2024 the Lincoln contingent was five strong.

The choir sings an advanced repertoire of arranged shanties and sea-songs, in many cases arranged by the director, Richard Bailey (who is also the Organist at KCM). Other composers/arrangers include Ralph Vaughan Williams and Hubert Parry.

All arrangements are protected by copyright, as are the specifically alternative words to the verses of South Australia and Drunken Sailor.