Introduction
Prinsep Players is the name of an Ensemble which has been playing a short selection of music to prepare members for worship for around 15 minutes before the 4th service of every month at Prinsep Street Presbyterian church. The Ensemble has been playing since Christmas Sunday, December 2006. Our aim is to provide a varied selection of music which enables those who attend church to meditate before the service while the music is playing.

Programmes
Prinsep Players have two basic programme formats which they alternate each month. On certain months they play a hymn medley on a specific theme such as Advent, Christmas, Easter or more general themes such as “Christ the king.” The offertory hymn will also reflect this theme.

On other months they play a baroque trio-sonata in the spirit of the so-called "church sonata" ("sonata da chiesa") which were written for European churches by composers such as Corelli, Handel and Mozart. (To date, these sonatas have included pieces by Bononcini, Handel, Telemann and Haydn.) For these months, the offertory hymn has been taken from Hymns from Taize (a selection of hymns from a community based in Burgundy in France) which have varied settings for instruments.

Although Prinsep Players is primarily an instrumental ensemble, we occasionally include music for voices where it fits with the monthly themes. Our music for Pentecost included an Anthem for voices by Purcell; our Advent music embraced two early carols from the medieval period and a cantata by Buxtehude; sometimes the Taize music is sung with voices joining the instruments.

Instrumentalists

• Chong Ten Yeen - violin (organ continuo)
• August Anh - viola (violin)
• Diana Chou - cello
• Kirk Chin Kee - cello
• Warren R. Beattie - recorder (organ continuo)
• Philip Satterthwaite - bassoon (oboe)

Singers

• Mae Heng
• Kirk Chin Kee

We are also grateful to Chua Lik Wuk (as violinist) a member of Prinsep Street Presbyterian Church’s 9:00 o’clock service and Mami Irie (as singer) church worker at the Japanese Christian Fellowship in Singapore - for joining our Ensemble for an Advent medley in early December 2007. We are grateful to Ping Kee (as organist) for playing the organ continuo on several occasions.

Other information
Warren Beattie and Kirk Kee have been co-ordinators for the Ensemble. The ensemble are working at developing a basic repertoire of suitable music - to date we have drawn on scores owned by members of Prinsep Players and in the National Library Board of Singapore’s collection.