If you want to sing out, sing out
County of Song creates a sense of community | 5 theatre shows to book now for spring 2025 | Latest NW arts news
If I said “Autumn days when the grass is jewelled”, would you reply “and the silk inside a chestnut shell”? If you know, then you know. But for those who didn’t grow up in the 80s and 90s - these are the first lines of the song Autumn Days from the school hymnbook Come and Praise.
Musician James B Partridge hit upon a brilliant idea when he started playing concerts of “school assembly bangers” including this one, Morning Has Broken, Cauliflowers Fluffy and my own personal favourite When a Knight Won His Spurs. You can see his top 20 in the video below. Partridge is currently performing a sell-out singalong tour of venues across the UK, and tickets for his Christmas Assembly Tour 2025 are already available. In the North West, he’ll be at Lancaster Grand, Liverpool’s M&S Bank Arena and New Century in Manchester.
Even people who wouldn’t describe themselves as great at holding a tune love singing in a group, it turns out. The shared experience gives you a sense of belonging, especially when the songs remind you of a community you were part of as a child.
Giving people the opportunity to sing together is also the mission of County of Song director Loz Kaye, who has spent this year leading a Lancashire-wide project that builds connections between choirs and other singing groups in the county. You can read all about that below in a piece I originally wrote for Blog Preston but want to share here as it’s an idea that could be replicated to other places in the North West and further afield.
‘Singing gives people a connection to their community’
It has been 42 years since Morag Hill moved to Preston wondering how to make friends - and she is still a member of the choir that welcomed her to the city and helped make it feel like home.
Now aged 80, she attends weekly rehearsals of Preston Orpheus Choir - one of 116 singing groups mapped in a new Lancashire-wide project. County of Song, a year-long celebration of singing - aims to showcase the region’s incredible oral history, and support the many groups whose existence were threatened during the Covid pandemic.
So far 1,000 people have taken part in events and workshops held by the project, which includes a new work performed at Encounter Festival.
For Morag, it’s a combination of music and sense of community that has kept her going back to her choir.
She says: “We have lots of friends at the choir. We celebrate each other's special birthdays, we send cards on wedding anniversaries, and sadly these days we go to each other's funerals as well. We're like a great big family.”
It was by chance that Morag discovered Preston Orpheus Choir, which has been in existence since 1929.
She says: “We were in Argentina at the time, which was not a good place to be in 1982. The Falklands War broke out and we came home. I went to a Christmas service at St Mary Magdalene’s in Ribbleton, and I stood next to a member of the choir. She heard me singing, and she said ‘would you like to come and join our choir?’”
This camaraderie is one of the things that County of Song director Loz Kaye identifies as a benefit of joining a singing group.
He says: “What makes the singing so special for people is the connection they feel to the communities around them. And the act of singing is something that brings joy, but also wellbeing. There's lots of great research that shows the benefits for everything from lung health to combating isolation.
“Lancashire has an extraordinary history of singing. In Rossendale, there was a group called Larks of Dean at a rural chapel 200 years ago. They were writing their own music. One of the groups that still exists is the choir at Lancaster Priory, and they assure me they have a continuous tradition of over a millennium.”
‘Lancashire has an extraordinary history of singing’ - Loz Kaye, County of Song director
County of Song is the outcome of a piece of research Kaye carried out in 2022 into the impact of Covid on grassroots singing in Lancashire. It found that, while they are a crucial part of the region’s cultural scene, 80% had lost members and 90% were looking to increase their numbers. Even more worryingly, nearly one third of groups said they were concerned about their future viability.
The report’s recommendations included a “recruitment tool kit” that groups could use to attract new members, a map to make it easier for people to find groups near them, and the creation of a community singing outreach role that would connect groups to networks and potential support.
At the time of writing, 116 choirs and other types of singing groups had added themselves to the online map on the County of Song’s website, while 27 groups have taken part in events and been given promotional support, working with partners including Culturapedia, Lancaster Arts, Encounter Festival, and LPM Dance.
Kaye says: “I think a lot of people are a little a little bit scared about the idea of singing. It's okay, you don't necessarily have to sound like the people on the television, your own voice is fine.”
Many singing groups, including Preston Orpheus Choir, have got rid of auditions, meaning that you don’t have to be of a certain standard to join.
Daniel Adams, the choir’s music director, says: “Officially, we’re what they call an oratorio choir, so we sing classical music whether that's Mozart’s Requiem, Elijah by Mendelsohn. We'd quite like to do a Messiah at some point. We're working on a Brahms Requiem for next year.
“I try to be as collaborative as possible, asking what our interpretation of the music is going to be as a group.”
As well as the valuable experience of working together towards a common goal, Daniel praises the physical and mental health benefits of singing.
In Preston, there are a number of groups that were specifically created to take advantage of this.
They include Memories and Melodies in Penwortham and The Alzheimer’s Society’s Singing for the Brain programme, which brings together people affected by dementia to sing songs they know and love.
Chris Lawson, the charity’s Local Services Manager for West and Central Lancashire, says: “We do find there's a wellbeing element to being together with other people and singing, and being engaged around music can bring forth feelings of joy.
“But we also know for people with dementia, especially where memory has been impacted, that a lot of people rediscover elements of themselves because the music is engaging different parts of the brain. Music seems to be stored differently as memories in the brain. “We could often see people who are not only uplifted by re-engaging with songs they might not have heard for a little while, but are talking and communicating in a way that perhaps they weren't outside of the music session.”
‘A lot of people rediscover elements of themselves because the music is engaging different parts of the brain’ - Chris Lawson, The Alzheimer’s Society
There is a waiting list for Singing for the Brain sessions, but Chris is keen for anyone affected by dementia to contact The Alzheimer’s Society for help.
He says: “Our dementia adviser service is a free method of support for people with dementia, and carers, friends and family of people with dementia, which is built around providing information advice.
“The core is day-to-day problem solving and strategies for living around or responding to the symptoms of that person's dementia, and how you're experiencing it.
“There are lots of really nice community groups and activities out there that are dementia friendly, but if you’re a person who would like to do more things themselves we can help you find ways of getting engaged with those as well.”
Find out more about County of Song and singing groups in Lancashire here.
Latest arts news
😱 Keith Allen plays O’Brien in a new stage production of George Orwell’s 1984, directed by Lindsay Posner (3 Sisters on Hope Street). It’s at the Liverpool Playhouse from Tuesday, November 19 to Saturday, November 23.
🎨 Oxton Art Fair takes place from 10am-4pm on Saturday, November 16 and Sunday, November 17 at the Williamson Art Gallery in Birkenhead, Wirral.
👪 The Parent Agency, a musical based on David Baddiel’s bestselling book with music by Dan Gillespie-Sells (Everybody’s Talking About Jamie), will have its world premiere at Storyhouse in Chester. Eleven-year-old Barry Bennett wishes for a better mum and dad and finds himself whisked away to an alternate universe, where kids get to pick out their perfect parents. It runs from Saturday, February 15 to Sunday, March 2, 2025.
🌱 Tate Liverpool will trace the battle between nature and industrialisation in The Plant that Stowed Away display, opening in March 2025. It will trace connections between the city and its trading history, reflecting on the journeys that have caused the movement of plants and people, and their impact on the city’s rich multicultural fabric. The display is inspired by the Weeds of Wallasey series by Wirral-born photographer Chris Shaw, which highlights the battle between nature and the post-industrial landscape of the area where he grew up.
In case you missed it
5 theatre shows to book now for spring 2025
Tones: A Hip Hop Opera: Writer and performer Gerel Falconer combines the gritty underground sounds of hip-hop, grime and drill with the melodrama of opera to tell the story of a treacherous path to self-discovery. It’s at The Lowry in Salford from March 5-8, 2025.
The Merchant of Venice 1936: Tracy-Ann Oberman stars as Shylock, a resilient single mother and hard-working businesswoman desperate to protect her daughter’s future, at the Liverpool Playhouse from February 4-8, 2025.
Do I Love You?: This sell-out production of John Godber’s comedy about three 20-somethings who fall for Northern Soul is returning to Storyhouse, in Chester, from May 6-7, 2025.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: If you missed the musical about an inventor and his children who travel in a flying car to a world which hates kids in Liverpool last month then you can catch it at the Palace Theatre, Manchester, from March 11-15, 2025.
Little Women: Anne-Marie Casey’s adaptation of Little Women takes the audience into the world of sisterhood, courage, ambition, as the March sisters navigate the challenges of the Civil War era, forging unbreakable bonds of love and family. It’s at The Grand Theatre in Blackpool from March 25-29, 2025.
Opening this week
The Whitworth is offering an intimate look at one of Southeast Asia’s leading contemporary artists in an exhibition of the work of Thai-based Jakkai Siributr.
There’s no Place, in the Manchester gallery’s Project Space, will house pieces exploring the major themes in Siributr’s practice, moving between Thailand’s political and social histories and personal stories of grief and remembrance. It runs until March 16, 2025.
Now booking
If you missed Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in Liverpool last month then you can catch it at the Palace Theatre, Manchester, from March 11-15, 2025.
Thank you for reading the 106th edition of Stored Honey. If you enjoyed what you read then please hit the ❤️ button as it helps to get the edition shown more widely.
Don’t forget, you can get hold of me on Instagram, in the comments or by replying to this email. I’m off now to see if I can remember all of the words to Autumn Days: 🎶Jet planes meeting in the air to be refuelled. . .
Have a great week,
Laura