I’ve tried to do this month by month encompassing the shenanigans of all 4 choirs!
January
WBLS – A slow start for the West Bridgford choir as we spent a couple of sessions back online. I was worried about covid cases and it seemed like the most sensible thing to do. We remained as two halves of the choir for an extra term for the same reasons but loved learning our new songs – including ABBAs ‘Don’t Shut me Down’ where we all agreed that Wendy was the best person for the solo.
The Liberty Belles also stayed online for the first session.
The ICU Liberty Singers continued online
February
I got a place as a lunch mate on Steph’s packed lunch for Channel 4 travelling to Leeds every month. I was hoping to be able to talk about singing….. but never did!
The Liberty Vocal Coaching Programme Verse 4 started as an in-person course running for 4 sessions over 8 weeks.
The Liberty Belles returned to face to face singing! Hurray!!
March
A Liberty Singers workshop learning ‘Friday I’m in Love’.
The ICU Liberty Singers met for a social singing session at Pizza Express in Holborn. We sang, ate pizza, drank a bit and all at the hospitality of Pizza Express. We created recordings of our voices which we could then use to sing along to at other times.
April
The Liberty Vocal Coaching Programme performed at the West Bridgford choir night as treasure at teatime.
The West Bridgford Choir came back all together as one big choir and sang to support the Ukrainian People as the war took hold.
I launched a new online choir called Wellbeing at One aimed at individuals and workplaces to sing for half an hour at 1pm on Wednesdays. I offered free places to existing Liberty Singers with the idea that it would grow over time.
The NHSBT Liberty Singers renewed their contract! As before, we sang 2 half hour morning sessions and one hour evening session for the wellbeing of the staff working across all departments.
The ICU Choir recorded ‘Friday I’m in Love’ virtually.
May
WBLS sang at the t20 cricket one murky Sunday morning. We also sang at QMC to support mental health awareness week.
I attended the first ever Inspire day which is the online community of choir leaders that I’m part of. A truly inspiring day!
June
WBLS sang at The Prom in the Park! One of our top favourite gigs.
The ICU Liberty Singers performed at the Welsh Intensive Care Society summer meeting where I was asked to speak about the positive effects of singing on metal health and wellbeing. The ICU Liberty Singers also performed in Belfast at the SOA Conference for ICU professionals.
The NHSBT Liberty Singers created a virtual recording of ‘Together Again’ with a video for their conference.
The Wellbeing at One choir closed due to lack of interest. Can’t win at everything!
The Liberty Belles and special guests sang at Portello. Those guests were the Las and Jo singing with Rich on guitar (and me on bass!)
July
WBLS performed at Portello Lounge for the first time since 2019.
I ran a double workshop on ‘Hyperballad’ by Bjork which was invitation only to the Liberty Belles plus a few other singers which was fantastic. They performed this at the Portello gig with WBLS.
A Liberty Singers workshop learned ‘Little Lies’ by Fleetwood Mac.
NHSBT Liberty Singers created a virtual recording of ‘1000 Years’.
August
And breathe! August is usually our month off. But the WBLS sang at the celebration of Life for Caroline Goodfellow – one of our singers who sadly died this summer. We’ve never done this before and it felt fitting and a lovely thing to do for her and her family.
September
The ICU Liberty Singers and the NHSBT Liberty Singers came together to create a virtual recording of “The Rose/We are sailing’ arranged by Abi Moore.
WBLS sang at the Robin Hood half marathon supporting the runners some of whom were our very own singers!
I finally gave up my esteemed role on Steph’s packed lunch.
The ICU Liberty Singers sang at the PICU Conference in Leicester.
I ran a workshop in Bath as part of a day of workshops by choir leaders from across the country.
October
A chance Twitter video captured the eyes of MDBrunch which lead them to invite us to perform at the Christmas Festival and the Tower of London! We are also approached by BeVox to join them at the Nottingham Albert Hall for their Christmas concert. Two fabulous opportunities.
WBLS also sang at the Ice Hockey in Nottingham as people came through the main entrance just as a lovely something to do.
November
The ICU Choir met for a social and rehearsal ahead of a performance at Portello Lounge with The Liberty Belles and a Beau. We absolutely loved this.
WBLS sang in the Victoria Centre to celebrate 50 years of happy shopping and at QMC for the Nottingham Charity Staff Nursing Support Event. I also ran a wellbeing workshop for the Neonatal team at QMC to support them.
December
ICU Liberty Singers recorded ‘O Holy Night’ and NHSBT recorded ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ virtually.
WBLS performed at the Tower of London with singers standing in to lead the songs as I had Covid.
We had another gig singing at the Ice Hockey! And we performed at the Nottingham Albert Hall as well as Portello Lounge. Crikey. I need a lie down now….
A massive thank you if you’ve been a part of our singing adventures, if you’ve supported us online or in person or if you’ve just read this and thought Wow! So much more to come and at the same time, what a totally fantastic year.
Next time I read a blog, Hopefully it wont disappoint me as much as this one. I mean, Yes, it was my choice to read through, nonetheless I truly believed you would have something interesting to talk about. All I hear is a bunch of moaning about something you could fix if you were not too busy searching for attention.
Hilarious. No idea what you were reading into this. It was a great year full of marvellous things to celebrate. Don’t read my blogs in future.