Designing a city-wide festival of singing for summer 2022
March, 2022
What will it take to get Newcastle singing?
The short answer is nothing…it already is.
Which is why we’ve put our heads together with regional partners to create Newcastle Sings, a festival to help celebrate every note sung in Newcastle in summer 2022.
Jenny Williams (Schools Adviser and Project Producer on behalf of Music Partnership North Newcastle) says,
“The team at Newcastle Sings know this all too well. And that’s why we aren’t trying to reinvent the wheel. Rather we are aiming to celebrate: to inspire and enthuse singers from across the region, and to provide exciting opportunities for groups and choirs to try out something new or perform somewhere different. And we want people everywhere to know what’s going on already in the North-East; it’s a vibrant and exciting scene, and there’s so much already to be proud of."
“The central aim of Newcastle Sings is to celebrate singing in all its forms. We also want to provide opportunities for children, young people and adults to come together and enjoy singing. Some of this is already planned – pop-up family friendly Saturday morning events in the city centre, concerts, schools’ festivals, community choir showcases. However, this is a grassroots festival that will be driven by the enthusiasms, creativity and zestfulness of local people who love singing – or think that they might.
“And while Newcastle Sings aims to bring together singers of all ages and levels, central to the festival is the Newcastle Youth Choir Project (NYCP). In shaping NYCP we knew that we didn’t want to impose our own teacher-led ideas of what a choir should be on a group of young people who are still finding their own voice, especially after so much lost time in the past couple of years (it’s worth remembering that a young person aged 12 today has already had a third of their entire school life dominated by Covid).
“And so the choir project is designed to breathe life into choral opportunities for young singers in the region, rather than to dictate what those opportunities should be in the future. We want our young singers to experience co-composing their own piece, to work with different vocal leaders, to rehearse in different spaces and experience singing with other established choirs (which they will get in the shape of the final showcase concert with a co-performance with Newcastle Choral Society).
“And then we want them to tell us what they think, and to help us shape what comes next. Perhaps we’ll end up with 20 singers, or maybe 100. But that’s the exciting bit: this project will be our collective learning journey. Working together in partnership with other organisations will be key too; we want all young people in the North-East to be able to access meaningful, high-quality vocal pathways.
“We’ll be handing over this space to you in a few weeks too. Whether you’re a student in a school choir, an adult in a community choir, a teacher, a parent or an enthused listener, we want you to share the stories behind your choirs, your schools, your performances and your ambitions to show the world how much singing can bring to everyone, everywhere, regardless of what experience they have or what style of music they enjoy most.
“Getting Newcastle Sings off the ground has been a joy, not least because of the support and enthusiasm we’ve had from the wonderful people working alongside us.
