Singing. I’ve always loved it but never had any formal tuition until 2010 when I did a 12 week evening course at CSSD that started off with 15 keen students and dwindled down to just 4 of us by the end!
The past couple of years I’ve been heavily involved in theatre and apart from the songs in Privates on Parade in May 2012, my vocal chords have been rather underused and I miss it very much. So when I decided to take a break from theatrical pursuits this year, doing some sort of singing was high on the to do list.
‘Traditional’ choirs don’t appeal to me so the timing of the brand new Chaps Choir group on Thursday nights couldn’t be better and I’m loving it (bah-dah-bah-bah-bah). With vocal chords freshly energised, I decided to be brave and dive in to the third annual Chorus Festival at Southbank Centre this bank holiday weekend.
On Saturday I joined around 100 people of all ages in an all-day workshop with Tim Rhys-Evans (of Only Boys Aloud and Only Men Aloud fame) working on 3 songs – ‘Will I’ from Rent, ‘Our Time’ from Merrily We Roll Along and what I now know as his signature arrangement of Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believin”. Spending the day rehearsing on the Royal Festival Hall stage was quite an amazing experience in itself – shame I forgot to take a photo.
At 6pm we all trotted down to the ground floor to perform our three songs to an enthusiastic audience in the packed Clore Ballroom, where I unexpectedly bumped into my friend Julie and we decided to sign up for a workshop on Sunday. Of course one thing leads to another and we had a great time singing our little hearts out to a Todd Rungren’s ‘Mighty Love’, watching an outdoors performance of the fantastic Pop-Up Choir, enjoying a tasty veggie burger and Pimms in the sunshine and taking part in a Pop-Up workshop session. On Monday night, the festival closed with a free concert in the Queen Elizabeth Hall with some gorgeous arrangements by groups led by Pete Churchill.
Two things struck me about the festival. Firstly what an inclusive activity singing can be. The minimum entry requirement is the ability to hold a note and that’s it. So there were all types, races and ages of people, from children (including a girl with Down’s Syndrome) to elderly people. Everyone had a smile on their face. It had quite a magical and emotionally-charged atmosphere.
Chorus Festival blazes the trail for arts events in the 21st century. Why should funding for arts organisations only be used to fund the production of paid performances? Watching a performance is certainly satisfying but actually taking part in something with other like-minded people is something else entirely. A more holistic and educational approach is exactly what a publicly funded arts organisation should be doing. I suspect that with the renewed focus on budget cuts, organisations that actively pursue this route are putting themselves in a far stronger position when those funding decisions come around again.
So hats off to Jude Kelly and the Southbank Centre team for such a fantastic achievement. I will be back in 2014.