Starling Voices to Take a Farewell Flight
/We recently dropped a huge bombshell with our immediate singing community. You may have heard about it on the grapevine. Whether you’re reading about it for the first time, or you’re one of our members still processing the announcement, we wanted to share the news with all our followers and explain a little more about our decision.
After 15 beautiful years of building community and bringing joy through group singing, the Starling Arts choirs will be disbanding in January 2025. This will follow a big 15th Anniversary celebration we’re planning for the beginning of next year.
This was an extremely difficult decision to make, and one that has led to much soul-searching, some tough conversations, and many tears at Starling HQ. But, to ensure Starling Arts’ legacy and future, we ultimately believe it's the right decision for us.
Over the past 14 and a half years, we've witnessed hundreds of singers blossom through our choir community. We have loved the thousands of hours of rehearsals, staging multiple concerts in venues near and far, recording albums, going on tours and away weekends, partaking in social trips, flash mobs, charity fundraising, and so much more. The camaraderie, musical growth, and lasting friendships formed within our choirs have been truly heartwarming, and we know that these will form the foundations for what comes next.
So if we love our choirs so much, why are we bringing them to a close?
When we started running Starling Arts in 2010, we had no idea that the choirs would become our ‘thing’, taking up much of our time, effort and resources. We were both in our mid-20s, with endless energy and stamina, few adult responsibilities in our personal life, and the sort of gumption and drive you’d expect from two young drama school graduates. While the work with our choirs was energising, educational and edifying for us both, we also had to say “no” to so many plans, ideas and opportunities that came our way. The personal, professional and financial boundaries that running regular groups entails stood in the way of reaching all the communities we wanted to reach with our work.
We’ve also noticed a shift within our community since the pandemic. Our members have grown with us, many also gaining more responsibilities in their private and professional lives, which has meant singing in choir regularly might not be as straightforward as it once was. Some people have found that working from home means they’re less likely to head out to a rehearsal in the evening. We’re all more health-conscious and careful when it comes to coughs and colds, and Covid is still doing the rounds, so we rarely have a full house at rehearsals or events. There’s a trend across the industry for tickets to be bought at the last minute, making producing events even more of a financial risk than it ever was. These are all factors that have also played into our decision.
Over 15 years we have learned so much, and given so much of ourselves, too. But the time has come to make this hard choice and change the way we run Starling Arts, allowing some space for new opportunities and building on some of the other work we already do.
We want to grow and develop our musical work in schools and with other community groups, including the Official Wicked workshops that we run in conjunction with the hit West End show. We want to write and develop more new musical theatre, both under the Garsin & Shields umbrella, and co-creating new work with communities. And, as we both approach 40 and have more responsibilities, we also want to give ourselves back some precious evenings for our personal lives!
It’s a scary step to take! We’re giving up the familiar and guaranteed for something that is far from given. But we want to channel the creative freedom and drive we had at the beginning of our journey with Starling Arts and step into the unknown. We know that this coming year will bring lots of unexpected adventures, and more questions to answer, and we know that we will miss having a weekly touchpoint with the members of our choirs. But we also know that the future promises even more exciting things, and our choir community will continue to fly in other ways.
We are absolutely intent on preserving the precious community that we have built over the last 14 and a half years, and we’re committed to building upon our existing Flock to ensure there is a lasting home for our cherished singing community. Flock will continue to provide the opportunity for our network to sing together regularly, meeting every two months throughout the year for a big weekend sing together. If you’re a former Starling choir member and want to get involved, please get in touch!
We're also busy working on plans for a memorable 15th Anniversary Gala celebration early next year, filled with music and memories. Watch this space for more details!
In the meantime, we want to express our deepest gratitude to our dedicated singers, families and friends for making the Starling Voices (and the Starling Singers, Corvida and Forte, the choirs we ran before the pandemic!) such a special part of our community over the years.
We hope that Starling Arts will continue to be a home for you all in 2025, and beyond.
Thank you.
Anna and Emily