choir

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choir Group of singers who perform as a musical unit. The earliest choirs were ecclesiastical and sang the plainsong in church services. From the 10th century onwards, polyphonic composition gradually replaced unharmonized plainsong in liturgical use. In the 16th and 17th centuries, pieces were written for two or more contrasting choirs. The birth of opera marked the development of the secular choir, or chorus. Most modern choirs, apart from some all-male cathedral choirs, are mixed.

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