Where to Watch the Starling Arts Choirs this Winter

Four ways to catch the Starling Arts choirs in action this festive season:

 1. Help us raise thousands for charity

What?
Carol singing for three fantastic charities: Whizz-Kidz, British Heart Foundation and St John's Hospice

Where?
Stations in Central London

How much?
Free to watch but please give generously to these inspiring charities

2.  Party with us! 

What?
The Starling Arts Winter Party cabaret 2013, complete with performances and a charity raffle

Where?
Downstairs at Mestizo, Euston

When?
Monday 25th November, 19.00 for 20.00

How much?
Free, with a charity raffle for Save the Children's Syria appeal 

How do I reserve a place? Tickets booked in advance via What's On are free! 

3. Join us at the beautiful Cadogan Hall

What? 
Corvida perform at the incredible Shine Theatre Group's 15th Anniversary Gala Concert 

Where?
The stunning Cadogan Hall in London's Sloane Square 

When?
Sunday 1st December, 17.30 

How much?
£10-25

How do I book? Click here!

4. See us singing outside the Southbank Centre 

What?
The Starling Arts choirs perform as part of Voicelab's Winter Festival 

When?
Thursday 12th December, 19:00 - 19:30

Where?
Outside Foyles, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank London (N.B. this is an outdoor performance) 

How much?
FREE, just turn up on the day  

We hope to see you at one of these events - get in touch with Anna and Emily at info@starlingarts.com if you'd like any other information on anything we do! 

Singing Together - Theatre, Music, Action

Starling Arts’ Co-director Emily Cook reflects on a weekend running singing workshops in Toulouse, France.  

My absolute favourite thing about running Starling Arts has to be the fusion of singing and community, which is rooted in the soul of every note we sing. When Anna and I thought up our first motto back in 2010 - Unite, Create, Soar - weekends like this one just passed were exactly what we had in mind. Getting people together, creating something special using music, and flying high as a result. To my mind there are very few things that unify and bond people as quickly as singing - proof of which has to be the university production of the musical Follies in which I met my now fiancé! 

This Saturday morning we woke up in Toulouse in Southern France, ready to run a weekend of singing workshops with over 40 people, across a range of ages, levels of experience and first languages! We were working with a community association very much akin to our own ethos at Starling Arts; TMA (Theatre, Music, Action) also uses the arts to bring people together, providing arts opportunities in English for anyone in the local community, with regular music and theatre activities taking place during the year. The 'action' part of their title, to me, really enforces the idea that something special happens when people get together through the arts.  

We were really excited to have been asked to run a special weekend-long 'show choir' workshop for TMA, extending the work we already do with our three London-based choirs, as well as our youth, community, education and corporate singing projects. As we boarded a flight from London Gatwick, Anna and I took stock of how lucky we have been to pursue a career we love so much, and for our work to have taken us international, meeting like-minded people and sharing our passion for music and theatre, now, across the channel too!  

We had hoped to get the group, many of whom had not met before, to feel at home together, before exploring vocal, physical and performance techniques. Our chosen repertoire included songs from Rent, the charts and a favourite Elvis-era mash-up arrangement, complete with dance moves! We were excited to see that the group were so passionate about singing, so thirsty to learn new skills, improve their harmony singing and try out some new dance moves too. 

The fantastic workshop participants show off their jazz hands

The results were electric, with many of the group finding themselves surprised by their achievements: “I never thought anyone would get me dancing!”, ‘I didn’t think I could sing in harmony”, “I’ve always been too shy to sing in public!”... 

Of course we were very proud but not at all surprised by what the group achieved in such a short amount of time - it’s incredible what an investment in the concept of ‘community’ (and a bit of fun) can do. Before we could catch our breath, we were back on a plane to London, that motto Unite, Create, Soar more pertinent than ever as we looked down over France, soaring though the sky, still humming the tunes and tapping our toes.

- Emily

If you would like Starling Arts to work with your community group, business, school or choir, contact Anna and Emily at info@starlingarts.com

Kids Week Choir!

We report back on getting 100 young theatre lovers singing in the Kids Week Choir at Shakespeare's Globe. 

One of our biggest goals at Starling Arts is to see as many people as possible engaging with music and the arts. We love sharing our passion for music theatre with young people, in particular, which is why we were so excited to be part of the launch event of this year’s Kids Week, which took place at Shakespeare’s Globe on the 1st August.  

The Starling team with the Kids Week Choir (photo by Pamela Raith)

Our team led a lively show choir made up of one hundred young theatre lovers aged between the ages of eight and 12, who performed a specially prepared medley of West End favourites, each from shows featured in the Kids Week scheme. 

Official London Theatre said ‘the annual initiative, which offers a free child’s ticket for every full price ticket purchased, as well as an additional two children’s tickets at half price, offers families a chance to see an array of hit West End shows and take part in a wide range of special activities throughout the month of August.’

Starling Arts co-director Anna Shields arranged a medley featuring songs from hit musicals including We Will Rock You, The Sound Of Music, Matilda The Musical, Mamma Mia! and Les Misérables, which was performed to audience of friends and family at the end of the morning, complete with choreography. Joining the Starling team were facilitators Rebecca Bailey, Hannah Conway and Jamie Noar. 

Anna and Emily teach the medley (photo by Pamela Raith)

We were thrilled to be joined by lead cast members from some of our favourite West End shows including Les Misérables’ Carrie Hope Fletcher, Matilda The Musical’s Marc Antolin, Mamma Mia!’s Emma Crossley, Jersey Boys’ Jon Lee, Let It Be’s Iain Hornal and The Mousetrap’s Annabelle Brown. 

The stars joined in with the choir workshop and final performance, setting an incredible example for the young performers, staying behind afterwards, answering questions and signing autographs. For the participants to meet such inspiring performers up-close must have been both thrilling and inspiring, and this interaction will surely be a key part of instilling a life-long love of the arts in those children who took part. We hope that our attendees will go on to love future theatre trips (made much more affordable through schemes like Kids Week!) and to participate in the arts themselves throughout thier lives. 

Talking to the Kids Week team about the launch event, Fletcher, who earlier this year made her adult West End debut as Eponine following her performance as the character’s younger self more than a decade before, said: “It was brilliant! I did Kids Week when I was 11 or 12 and I remember being so inspired by the actors and actresses from the West End shows then. So to be a West End performer now and to come back and actually be the person to encourage these kids is an absolute honour.”

The Kids Week Choir (photo by Pamela Raith)

One of the event’s young participants, Evie Hind, said: “Today was very fun and our favourite song was [Matilda The Musical’s] Revolting Children… because we are revolting children.” When asked whether performing in today’s choir made the children want to take to the West End stage, the response was a resounding “yes”.

Kids Week said ‘There are still thousands of tickets on sale for the month-long promotion, which has now been bringing the magic of live theatre to children and their families for 16 years. To book tickets, visit www.kidsweek.co.uk

You can watch the ITV coverage of the event here.

The Final Countdown: Abracadabra

Last week, the Starling Arts community had an epic week of singing and dance rehearsals, concluding with our first full run of Abracadabra by our wonderful band, made up of bass guitar, drums and two keyboards. Find out how the magic is taking shape in this week's blog post. 

CHOIR REHEARSALS

Performance rehearsals continue with members of all three Starling Arts choirs, Corvida, Forte and the Starling Singers. The show pieces are coming together really well, and the choirs enjoyed watching snippets of each others' songs at our final combined rehearsal on Thursday evening.

BAND CALL 

On Friday came one of our favourite parts of the final preparations for our productions: band call, the first day our musicians get together to rehearse the music for a show. Having rehearsed with our singers for some months using only a piano or keyboard in a small hall, the introduction of the band is like the icing on the musical cake, bringing everything together. The instrumentation adds texture and personality to the songs, bringing them to life. 

Using 'patches' from a computer plugged into our 2nd keyboard, we can achieve an array of high quality sounds played through the keys. We have a strings section, electric guitar, 80s synth bass and a brass section at the flick of a switch! 

We think our Abracadabra band are rather special. The incredible musician Jen Green has worked with Starling Arts since our very first session back in January 2010, and Abracadabra marks her 7th show with us, incredibly!  The talented Dave Holden returns for a third time to play bass with us and we’re thrilled to welcome Sam Cooper to our line-up for the first time on drums! Starling Arts' co-director Anna Shields leads the band, and can be seen here on Keyboard 1. 

We can't wait to perform Abracadabra on 6th and 7th July 2013 at the John McIntosh Theatre, London, and hope you can join us! Tickets are available from our What's On page.

Coming soon... Abracadabra

Starling Arts' next show Abracadabra hits the stage at the John McIntosh Theatre in less than four weeks! This post is an excuse to tell you all about it and to use as many magic puns as possible...

I'm willing to bet that everyone reading this is familiar with the word 'Abracadabra'. A magical incantation used in magic tricks, conjuring images of rabbits pulled from hats and magic wands, the word is so closely associated with wonder that it seemed an obvious choice to provide the title to our evening of musical performance artistry on stage!

The etymology of the word 'Abracadabra' suggests it comes from the Hebrew meaning "I create (A'bra) what (ca) I speak (dab'ra)." This struck a chord with us: through song we create different worlds on stage.

It's been a year since our last show, having recorded our debut album Taking Flight at the end of last year, and we've lots to show! Plenty of new voices have since joined us, bringing some incredible talent to the already spell-binding Starling line up. We've more variety than ever, with rock, pop and show tunes from a range of acts like Rihanna to The Lumineers, plus songs from the musical Matilda and show-tune classics like 'One' from A Chorus Line, featuring some of our most ambitious dancing yet. This show is a bit like a tin of Roses - there is something for everyone!

All of our adult singers have been rehearsing with us for just 2 hours a week over the last few months, but with plenty of extra work going on outside of sessions, the singers have poured their hearts into making this show something they can be proud of, practicing dance moves in their kitchens, harmonies in the shower and even sewing costumes on their Sunday afternoons!

Singing in a choir, particularly one with such an emphasis on performance, is hard work. Just when you think you've nailed a vocal harmony, a tricky dance step jumps in to confuse you, plus you sometimes have up to 60 other voices to blend with - but when it comes together, magic happens and we’re very proud of all our singers’ hard work!

Of course, the whole show will be spell-binging, but here are our top tips:

Our Abracadabra Highlights:

• An epic medley of Meatloaf's hits arranged specially for the Starling Singers 

• A Mary Poppins trilogy, with one number performed by each choir, with some of the catchiest tunes and trickiest dance routines yet!

• Songs made famous by Elvis and the 'Rock 'n' Roll' era mashed up in a toe-tapping performance from Forte 

• A punk-rock departure for our close-harmony Corvida ladies and a song made famous by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers...

We hope our singers will put a spell on you - just come on down and visit us on July 6 & 7th at the John McIntosh Theatre and see...

- Emily

Workplace Singing? You're hired!

On Monday we headed to Pimlico to sing but, rather than attending our usual rehearsal halls, we stopped just short at St Saviour's Church to take part in a vocal CPD workshop for choral facilitators, run by the London Youth Choir.

It was lovely to be in a room full of people just as passionate about group singing as we are. In amongst sharing skills and ideas with peers, we were tutored by Greg Beardsell and Rachel Staunton, two of the brightest lights in choral leadership.

The workshop reinforced the value of engaging our mind with our breath, voice and body and those around us when singing, not just as a vocal tool but a social one; levelling the group and casting out external worries, focusing you on the task and sharing in the same exercise. 

All of this is at the forefront of our work with Starling Arts and how we nurture communities, whether new or existing, to be creative, confident and supportive of one another. 

Following an excellent rehearsal with our choir Corvida last night - excellent because our singers not only sang and performed brilliantly, but engaged in all of the above qualities - I returned home to watch the latest episode of The Apprentice. Focusing on Corporate Away Days, the two teams had to devise a day of team building and motivational exercises for major clients, the winner being the team who provided not just a profitable session for themselves, but a satisfying and useful session for their client. The exercises chosen - wine tasting, cupcake decorating, archery, etc - may have been fun in their own right, but what surprised me, and indeed Lord Sugar, was how the majority of candidates seemed to link these tasks so tenuously to the business objectives set-out by the client. 

Away Days are about team-building, leadership, confidence, focus and communication, all qualities which can be developed through group singing. Starling Arts offer bespoke sessions which provide just that for businesses (click here to find out more). Delegates need no prior experience to sing, just a voice! And regardless of the vocal quality, the personal satisfaction and achievement that comes from group singing is at the root of why it works; perhaps The Apprentice candidates should have got in touch with us? 

Next month a new book by Stacy Horn is to be published. 'Imperfect Harmony: Finding Happiness in Singing With Others' charts Horn's time with a community choir she joined after her divorce. In a recent interview with Ari Shapiro and guest Daniel Levitin (author of 'This is Your Brain on Music'), Horn quotes a paper she read which explained how "Group singing and performance can produce satisfying and therapeutic sensations, even when the sound produced by the vocal instrument is of mediocre quality." Once again, you don’t need prior experience (or Adele's vocal cords) to sing together, and it is exactly this point which I hope will fend off any skeptics who might favour wine-tasting or chocolate making over a good sing when it comes to corporate away days.  As Daniel Levitin highlights in the interview, there are proven neurochemical rewards gained from group singing, principally the release of oxytocin, the 'friendship chemical'. Friendship is the cornerstone of a strong community, be it a choir, business, school or society.

See the power of group singing in action at our concert Abracadabra next month, and get in touch if you would like Starling Arts to sing with you and your workplace. 

- Anna