Lowcountry Sacred Harp

Here in Charleston, SC, we sing shapenote music from The Sacred Harp (1991 edition)

and occasionally from The Shenandoah Harmony.  We usually meet on the

3rd or 4th Saturday of the month at Circular Congregational Church (see directions below). 

Beginners are always welcome!  We have extra songbooks for newcomers to sing from.

Our scheduled meetings for 2016 are the following Saturdays, at 2-4pm:
         Jan. 30, Feb. 20, March 26, April 23, June 25, July 30, August 27,
                     Sept. 24, Oct. 29, Nov. 19 and December 17

You can also find our meetings on the calendar at circularchurch.org.

In addition, we hold an annual all-day singing on the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend.


If you have any questions, please contact me (Tom Ivey) at 843-853-3976 or email


The minutes from our 2015 singing in Gage Hall are available here.


Other shapenote happenings in our area include monthly singings in Savannah.


Directions to our regular monthly singing:
We sing in lower Lance Hall (the Sharpe Room), at the historic Circular Congregational Church, located at 150 Meeting St. in Charleston.  Lance Hall is the two-storey building with columns in the east corner of the churchyard.
The room we use is at the back of the ground floor, entered from the east side off the courtyard.


Parking (for a fee) is available at the City garage or in the bank parking lot just wast of the churchyard.

Both are entered off of Cumberland St.  (Please note that the parking lot behind the churchyard, off of Queen

Street, is no longer officially available to us, and the access gate between this lot and the church campus

has now been permanently locked by the lot owner.)


Other Resources:
Click here to download a 1-page beginner's guide to Sacred Harp.
You can find much more information about shapenote singing in the southeast
and across the US at the following sites:

You can find a recording of the 2011 Piccolo Spoleto singing here
and audio from our 2010 singing at BostonSing.org.

On January 14, 2012 we held a special "demonstration" singing at the Grand Army Hall
at 706 Newcastle St. in Beaufort, SC.  Pictures from the singing can be found here.