We have loved hearing stories of your choirs, how you came together, what was the spark that ignited the flame right at the beginning, and how things have developed since then. There are almost as many different stories as there are choirs, and this is one of the fascinating things about this recent explosion of Community Choirs in particular. I was chatting to Gitika Partington, my fellow ChoirCommunity pal, who has been running choirs long before I started in the early 2000s. I asked her where she originally got her spark from and her answer was instantaneous, “Oh that would be Frankie Armst ..read more

Ever since its inception in France in 1982, people all over the world have been dedicating one day each year to the simple joy of making music, with no barriers to anyone wanting to play and enjoy live performance. In the intervening years, the idea has spread to over 125 countries and none more so than in the UK where last year, hundreds of events put on by tens of thousands of performers took place up and down the country. We have teamed up with the Make Music Day team this year to help promote the day and make it even bigger than last year! One of the ideas we had is to combine the other bi ..read more

MakingMusic.org have been a hugely positive and supportive partner of ChoirCommunity, even from the early days when we had very little in terms of content or members!  As a corporate partner of MakingMusic, we also offer a 15% discount to all MakingMusic members across our entire library of arrangements. We also think they have a great deal to offer community choirs so we are delighted to highlight one of their latest services – the Making Music Platform. ‘What music do you sing?’ ‘Do I have to audition?’ ‘What are the other choir members like?’ ‘Do you have any social events?’ These are ..read more

If you were already a member of ChoirCommunity in May last year, you probably received an e-shot from us with news about a project we were working on to investigate the true provenance of the many of the unattributed songs which we have arranged and published from the African continent. We have continued to work on this with Umoya Creations, a South-African charity set up to bring healing, education and reconciliation to people affected by Apartheid, set up and run by the International Percussionist, Composer and Workshop Leader, Eugene Skeef. It has been a fascinating journey of discovery and ..read more

We published Dan’s introductory collection of arrangements on ChoirCommunity just before Christmas.  Everyone was probably quite distracted with concerts then so we’re making sure the collection gets a proper promotion now. In this first video of a new series covering all our new arrangers, Craig chats to Dan over Zoom about his musical journey and his approach to choral arranging. You can check out Dan’s launch collection of arrangements on ChoirCommunity here.   The post New Arranger Welcome – Dan Pate appeared first on ChoirCommunity ..read more

It’s ‘acapella’ week this week as we’ve got a bumper crop of new unaccompanied arrangements published – a fantastic addition to our collection from Gitika Partington and Wendy Sergeant.  As long-time members of the ChoirCommunity team, Gitika and Wendy both have well-established collections on the website, but these latest additions bring something new and fresh as always. Wendy has recently undertaken an “Innovative Choir Leading” course at the Royal College of Music in Denmark and I think you can definitely hear the influence of that in her latest arrangements.  In particular, her ..read more

As people involved with music for their livelihoods it surely follows that we should also value the music we use at the highest level – and by extension all those involved in writing it. It is therefore somewhat disappointing when we hear about events and music leaders trying to get away with obtaining the music they use without paying the proper price for it. ChoirCommunity is a digital download music site so we rely on trust more than most places to ensure that our rights owners, composers and arrangers get the appropriate recognition and reward for the work they do when our music is sold. W ..read more

Hi ChoirCommunity, Gitika here! Last week I got a little ping in my inbox to say someone in our Choir Community had bought one of my Christmas titles, and for some reason I had a little sneaky look to see who it was and found Kari! I got in touch and found out that Kari Olsen-Porthouse and I did the same Performing Arts degree at the same college…. and possibly slept in the same room in the same hall of residence!  I am (a little!) older and was there a few years before but was completing my Secondary Music PGCE at the same time Kari did her degree. Piers, Craig and I have been thinking a ..read more

We had a really great response to this competition over the first few months of the year and have enjoyed judging all the entries immensely.  Thank you to everyone who took the time and effort to send us something.  We enjoyed listening to every one and have been assured that the community choir scene is thriving around the world! The range of entries was also impressive.  We received over 30 submissions in total and the winners chosen span three continents – North America, Europe and Australasia.  It’s rather gratifying to be able to say this was a truly international comp ..read more

It’s been a while, but we have finally got ourselves into the position of looking for some new arrangers to join the team! ChoirCommunity is now in its sixth year and we are really proud of what we have achieved over this time. We now have well over 1100 downloadable titles available, all created by our 22 talented choir leaders, arrangers, composers and musicians from around the UK and abroad.  Since January 2018, over 250,000 copies of music have been downloaded from the site by the 6,700 choirs around the world who have joined up by registering an account.  We’re now looking to bu ..read more