Recent Projects

In addition to our weekly singing rehearsals, our choirs also take part in writing and creative projects. We commission established writers, poets, composers and photographers to work with members to produce projects which help us all learn more about each other, strengthen community bonds, raise confidence and self-worth, and to be part of something beautiful. Here are some examples of our most recent projects:

Beautiful Minds

Spring 2020

Librettist and poet Emma Jenkins met with choir members at Penylan House and Nazareth House care homes and asked them to share some of their most precious possessions and memories. Her poetry was combined with song to create a new work, presented by the choristers to families and friends. 

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Beautiful minds bring beautiful things;

Photographs, moments in time, wedding rings,

Shared experiences, snapshots of bliss that lent wings

In turbulent times and to which we all can cling

Like so many threads of filigree.

Beautiful minds bring beautiful things;

Paintings, portraits, a song we love to sing,

A tapestry, a porcelain doll or just a thought that brings 

Us back to that inner space, that spirit of place

Where we remember what it is to be free.​

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Tapestry

Spring 2020

Writer and poet Louise Osborn chatted to members of our Capel Grange care home choir. Their lives and experiences were woven  into poems - a beautiful Tapestry - celebrating their lives. The project culminated in a sharing of the original poems and songs, and members received a keepsake memory book of the project.

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Here, at Capel Grange, our lives converge, Crossing pathways, now residing close,
Drawn together by the years of long-lived lives, Threading in and out of one another. 

A rich Tapestry of experience,
Some known, some precious secrets held -
Beneath this same warm and caring roof.
Here, tracing the history of who we are,
And who we have been before, our memories
Weave the patterns and fine threads of our lifetimes.

Behind the Mask

Spring 2019

Inspired by Verdi's 'Un Ballo in Maschera', Louise Osborn and Richard Vaughan were commissioned to work with our choristers, looking at how loving relationships are affected by  dementia. Behind the Mask featured music from the opera, spoken word, original songs and music of the 50s and 60s.

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When I am parted from you I cannot come to rest

Whilst you’re left lying there, unguarded and alone.

Though I desperately crave for time apart

And sometimes long to be elsewhere

When I am parted from you I cannot come to rest,

A sensation felt through flesh and blood and bone.

And though it sometimes suffocates

Leaving me wearied to my core

This bond explains me

And I cannot but be there

Quiet by your side, just sitting

And reading. And ready.

Sharing the air of our long love’s journey.