Sing Aloud

Oh my goodness - we're famous! Those who've followed my blog for a while might know that I love to sing. I'm not exactly a keen performer but put me in a pew or in a row in a concert hall with a choir and I belt it out "just like a throstle" as my dad has always said.

As a teenager I travelled far and wide with my youngest sister singing in the county youth choir and with school too. Traditional music, hymns, madrigals and all that sort of thing that really makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and sends a shiver down my spine

But oh dear, its been ages and ages since I've warbled along to anything more than the radio so it took a lot of nerve to pluck up the courage and join our church choir last summer.

Well I did and gosh am I glad I did! Apart from a break in February/March when I, then the rest of the household were laid low with lurgy (and I was either coughing my head off or attending to my nursing duties), I've been to regular services and weekly Thursday night practices at our lovely church.

We're very lucky to have a special stone building, The Choir House, for rehearsing in the churchyard, with a lovely old piano, space for all the hymn books, cassocks and gowns and the sort of wonderfully polished floor that reminds me of the school gym at primary school.

Some services there can be 24 of us, but on average there's about 18 basses, tenors, altos and sopranos singing our praises at St Edward's. They're a lovely friendly bunch of villagers, a few from further afield and some wonderful voices as well as our impossibly talented and extremely young organist (19!) and choir master who keeps us on course. We've had some lovely meals out together, barbeque's at the vicarage and we have some great fun too.

Well, a couple of weeks ago Choir House was abuzz with exciting news that we were going to be doing a proper recording!

Its 100 years since local silk magnate and eminent Victorian Sir Thomas Wardle died and his life, connections to William Morris and the achievements of the Silk Embroiderers Guild he and his wife patroned are being celebrated across town this summer. Sir Thomas was also a churchwarden at St Edward's and wrote some wonderful church music during his time which our choir as now recorded to be played for visitors to the special exhibition at the Institute in town and inside church too.

And yesterday we went global (sort of!) as BBC Radio Stoke played our recordings as part of their weekly programmes and for the next week it can be heard here if you click on the link for the Current Service on the BBC page, then Listen Now (if you fancy it!)

So hardly showbiz but I was so very excited to be part of a wonderful project and to sing some truly beautiful music. Oh and there's going to be a CD - but don't worry I won't be getting an agent just yet!