sing.lovemusic.org.uk
Love Singing is a community singing initiative supported by Creative Scotland. It celebrates the resilience of choirs and their communities and its aim is to support and promote creative, healthy singing communities across Scotland.
The Love Singing steering group (see below) is currently work on the project’s strategy and programme of events for the next 3 years and will publish details of training, resources, network building, research and other support available very soon. Join our mailing list if you’re a singing leader and would like to be kept up to date with project progress, and visit the website to access free songs, warm ups and resources to use with your singing groups.
To date the project has commissioned 5 new songs written especially for community singing groups, published a songbook collection and warm up library kindly contributed by song leaders from across the country, and held a Scotland-wide gathering of community singing leaders to facilitate networking, learning and the development of a sector-led strategy for the future.
Comfort Of Voices weekend gathering
In Sept 2022, we hosted Comfort Of Voices, a weekend gathering that took place in Glasgow and online for choir and song leaders at all levels of experience and working in any genre, living or working in Scotland for the benefit of Scottish communities.
Representatives from choirs across the country and national organisations contributed to discussions and delegates sang together, learned from each other and networked with their peers. We discussed suggestions and practical solutions to best ensure sector resilience, future sustainability and growth, and started to explore what could be done at a strategic level to enable this change. We published a songbook and video warm up library which is free for all to use. Through extensive consultation and evaluation, a sector-led strategy and activity plan was developed.
To ensure that project planning reflects the breadth of the sector, the Comfort Of Voices steering group comprises some of Scotland’s most highly regarded singing and choir practitioners with complementary specialisms across a wide range of community, social and health care settings.
Ali Burns: Natural Voice Network specialist
Katy Lavinia Cooper: Head of Marketing and Trainer at Sing For Pleasure
Stephen Deazley: Artistic Director Love Music
Mary Ann Kennedy:Â Gaelic singer, composer and broadcaster
Andrew McTaggart: Director of Ayr Choral Union
Alison Reeves: Scottish Programme Manager at Making Music UK
Penny Stone: Specialist in singing for health and wellbeing
2021 Love Singing commissions
In 2021, we commissioned five songwriters to write new songs in collaboration with five community choirs. Written during the pandemic, the songs were created to be accessible for online teaching and learning, and are accompanied by professionally recorded audio and video resources to support both choir leaders and choir members. The songs and the resources are freely available for any choir to use and sing, published under creative commons licences. Each of the five choirs involved in the project has recorded their own version of the songs which gives a good feel for how they might be interpreted, performed and enjoyed by other choirs.
The Love Singing project began as a response to the incredible work that community choirs across the country were doing to keep their communities connected and singing over the pandemic. They proved resilient, adaptable and willing to address enforced isolation by embracing new technologies; they rose to the challenges of delivering messy, complicated, socially distanced singing. They did this because they believe in their communities, the importance of staying connected and the power of singing together. Love Music produces Scotland’s largest community choir and as we became part of this journey we were inspired by the resilience we saw around us; we wanted to create an opportunity for ambitious and exciting creative collaboration and in doing so offer a seed of inspiration to help keep us all motivated and singing over the next months and years.
If you’d like to be kept up to date with Love Singing, please sign up to the email list.