Tickets are now on sale for my final singing workshop this year. Come and join me, the accompanist and some special guest musicians in the beautiful acoustic of St Andrew’s Church in Corbridge, Northumberland, for an afternoon of festive choral music.
All voice parts welcome…sheet music/words will be provided. More details on Eventbrite here.
The sale on all my festive choral titles has been extended until the end of September! I realise how busy choir leaders and teachers can be at the start of term so hoping a bit more time might help some of you out!
Please head across to the SHOP and search for CHRISTMAS CHORAL
Last night my ‘Gospel Round‘ performed by Dark Sky Voices was aired on BBC Radio Newcastle! It was part of the BBC Introducing programme presented by Nick Roberts which devotes 2 hours of time to original music by North East songwriters. I am particularly pleased to have a live recording aired for the first time rather than my own studio recordings. This track was just one of several songs recorded at Simpson Studios by Ian Stephenson. You can listen again for a month here at 1.39.
For those currently planning Christmas concerts, all my festive scores have been reduced to £1 a copy for the month of August!
Just head across to my online SHOP and find the Christmas choral section where you can have a look at the scores and a listen too! Most are now available for mixed and upper voice choirs.
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!
