LUMINOS  CHOIR

                              Luminos at Pavilion Dance, Bournemouth                       photo by Maisie Hill

 

LUMINOS  CHOIR  is a community choir that meets on Monday evenings in Poole during term time....   We now have ninety members and invite new people to join us in September. I love this choir because there's a warm feeling and also there is a fantastic group of women who make up the Steering group and make it all run smoothly.

The repertoire is varied and includes songs that are uplifting, soulful, fun and sometimes challenging...  whether they come from folk, jazz, classical or pop styles, I arrange the songs to suit the choir.  I have written a song cycle for the choir called "A World Apart", which is about places in Poole Harbour.  One of them "Sandbanks Serenade" takes lyrics from estate agents blurb! At the moment I am writing a song cycle about Trees for the choir.

 

 

 

                                    

                                               THE  FREEDANCE  CHOIR

 

                                                                                                    photo  Ben Osborne

 

 THE  FREEDANCE  CHOIR  in St Catherines Chapel Abbotsbury

                      with BSO  Resonate Strings

 

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     This choir gets together when there is a project of my music ...  they're very adventurous!

It's a very warm and quirky choir and I love it when we get together.

  I call it my "Extreme Choir" !

 

Two years ago in May we were asked to sing up a cliff at Clavell Tower, Kimmeridge as part of The Landmark Trust 50th Golden Weekend and beautifully organised by Artsreach. We worked on a piece by Kerry Andrew called Anthem for Landmark, which was being sung by 25 choirs at different Landmark Trust places at the same time! 

 

 

                                                                                                  photo  Roland Tarr

Then we processed down the hill and sang some songs by the sea including Kimmeridge Kestrel, which I wrote for the occasion. If you look carefully you can see Tim Laycock leading the procession...His choir  The Ridgeway Singers also sang by the shore.

It was a magical day

 

 

 

                                                                     

 

 One December we did a joint concert with Trio Hysteria at Bridport Arts Centre , where we celebrated the songs of Kate Garrett. 

 

 

  

                       Abbie Lathe, Jess Upton and me                           photo Jamie Dawson

                                                           

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Trio Hysteria began life in Bridport, early nineties, with Abbie, Kate Garrett and myself. We got together because we wanted to work out Bulgarian harmonies, and  we wrote our own songs and performed at The Barbican and Glastonbury amongst other places. When Kate died she left some beautiful songs and Abbie, Jess and I wanted to bring some of them to life in our concert with The Freedance Choir.

 

 

Here is an early recording of Machine Song with Abbie, Kate and myself....