It all began in the fall of 1987, when Suzanne Stephan was a freshman at the college singing in the Women's Chorus and Eric Plaag was a senior formerly in the Choir. When mutual acquaintance Keith Myers discovered each person's interest in madrigal music, he put the two in touch with each other, and thus, with Suzanne as the first director and Eric as the first president, the Christopher Wren Singers were born. Eric's friends from high school madrigals (Keith Myers, Jen Stowe) and several other interested people (Laura O'Brien, Tara Lane, Julie Smith, Leslie Arcesi, and Christiane Choate) comprised the first group, originally called "The College Singers." Their first performance was for that year's Grand Illumination in Colonial Williamsburg for the holiday season. That spring, they became an official college organization, changing their name the next year to "The Sir Christopher Wren Singers," later dropping the "Sir" due to its pretentiousness.