Delighted to get the go ahead from Hexham Abbey Festival to co-ordinate a joint schools singing project in September! I’m currently working with seven local schools who will come together to perform two ‘peace’ themed songs to mark International Peace Day on September 21st. Can’t wait! The whole festival programme looks terrific. Please do check it out!
Last weekend I took my fabulous ladies choir Dark Sky Voices along to Simpson Street Studios to record a selection of tracks. It was mostly audio recordings however we were lucky enough to shoot 3 videos. Thank you to Ian Stephenson for his amazing technical skills, advice and enthusiasm!
I’m so delighted with ‘A Hope Carol’, which I’ve just made public today!
Hope you enjoy watching and listening.
Thank you to all these lovely singers who attended my 2nd workshop yesterday up at The Bellwether Gallery in rural Northumberland. This brand new venue has wonderful acoustics for singing, so once the songs were familiar, the results were terrific! We sang three different rounds of varying difficulty, a Scottish reel at various speeds and some classic jazz standards including Summertime, complete with warm 3-part harmonies reminiscent of the original from Porgy and Bess!
Yesterday was a joyous day of musical togetherness! My ladies choir Dark Sky Voices joined forces for the very first time with Jon Doran’s choir VoiceMale to perform a brilliant new choral work written by Jenny Mahler, commissioned by Kielder Water and Forest Park. ‘The Kielder Chorale’ an energetic, descriptive song about all the wonderful things in the forest, was quite a challenge for both choirs to sing but with lots of hard work, we pulled it off, coming together as a four-part choir for a rehearsal an hour before the performance! Better still I got to conduct it!!
It’s been great working with Jenny in the run up to this performance. Hopefully we can find more opportunities to work together in future years to come. You can read more about Jenny and her music at www.jennymahler.co.uk
It’s May Day and I’m absolutely chuffed to bit to have my recording of ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’ included in tonight’s ‘Classical Mixtape’ on BBAC Radio 3! It was first up in a specially selected choice of BBC Introducing recordings by Helen Garrison Producer at Radio 3. Thank you for that!
I’m delighted to announce the details of my second singing workshop for 2023! This time I’m hosting it in the beautiful rural setting of The Bellwether, Charlton in the North Tyne Valley. Due to the size of the venue, numbers are limited to 30 so get booked in early to avoid disappointment!
It was a huge privilege to direct my own choir Dark Sky Voices last night, in the very first public performance of ‘A Hope Carol‘. They really brought the song to life exactly as I hoped!
The score is available for Upper voices (SSA) and for Mixed voices (SAB) with piano accompaniment. To hear an extract…https://youtu.be/ThwLDc7PO-Q
It’s been a wonderful weekend of festival success! Andover Ladies Choir won the Folk class at Mid Somerset Festival with their performance of Sing a Song of Sixpence whilst here at Ryton Music Festival, (Tyne and Wear) my own choir Dark Sky Voices won their class with a stunning performance of Amazing Grace! It’s terrific that festivals are now back up and running. I know competitive music making is not for everyone, but having competed several times myself in the Tynedale Music Festival as a student, I now realise the value of the taking part. Thank you and a big well done to all singers involved. Keep up the good work!
A very big thank you to the Dartmoor Multi Academy Trust who recently commissioned a new song for 20 of their schools to sing as part of a Festival of Hope. The finished video performance of ‘Make Our Future Bright‘, combining footage from all participating schools looked brilliant and sounded fabulous! Terrific to see so many young singers taking part. Well done to all involved. Bravo!
Yesterday I delivered my very first ‘Come and Sing‘ workshop and I loved it! 34 singers from across the North East joined me in Hexham’s West End Methodist Church for an afternoon of singing. The group were so impressive, they managed to learn all 6 songs I had planned for them either side of a tea break! We started the session with a brand new round I composed specially for the occasion titled ‘18th February 2023‘, then we went on to sing a selection of songs I have been commissioned to write for other occasions in the calendar year. Thanks to all who came along…keep a look out for my next workshop which will take place in the Summer.
