First Notes to First Birthday

This week has felt like a milestone. Not just a date in the calendar, but the coming together of everything we’ve built over the last 12 months.

At our rehearsal this week, we did something we hadn’t done before; we sang our way through the entire year (skirting around Christmas a bit, but not entirely!). Standing there hearing those songs was like opening a scrapbook of sound. Some we remembered really well, others not so much. It was a beautiful night, and gave all our newer members a chance to discover what we did before they joined, giving them a taste of what might come next.

Speaking of a scrapbook, at the start of our rehearsal, just before we started to sing, I was completely blindsided by Kev, who in cahoots with the whole choir, had been chronicling the year in a beautiful year book, complete with a special foreword from Anna Foster at BBC Radio Newcastle. Reading this after the rehearsal was so special, and made me so proud of all we have achieved.

We’re not quite done celebrating. This weekend we’re out celebrating with our first birthday party - a chance to get together without lyric sheets. At the start of the year, despite me having been part of the choir for a couple of years already, there were singers from the other vocal sections who I had never spoken to. Now it’s different. The community we’ve built over the last year, with our many (26!) live performances, full days in recording studios, many social events and online community, means that we’re getting to know each other so much better, and it truly does feel like one huge family - so I really anticipate this party being something special.

And then, this Tuesday, we’ll be singing at the Sunderland Empire as part of the opening night of The Choir of Man. We’ve been working so hard towards getting the harmonies for this one just right, and I’m so proud of my singers’ first stab at acapella - they’ve absolutely nailed it. We’re not singing from the stage, but 62 of us will be performing a full arrangement from the stalls, alongside the cast on the stage, and it truly is a huge honour and fantastic opportunity for our singers - all of whom are everyday folk from South Tyneside, Gateshead and the surrounding area. How many people in Hebburn can say they’ve been part of a real West End musical!?

A year ago we were just beginning. This week, we’re celebrating. Next week we’re stepping into something bigger than we ever imagined.

Here’s to the music and friends we’ve made, the memories we’re creating and the incredible moments still to come.