Singing in Community: Creative Workshop with Voices Weaving
Join us for an interactive creative workshop - we’ll explore creative ways of using and exploring your voice, and songwriting methods to connect with each other and our communities.
Alongside some exploratory exercises, we will be using your lyrics to create a song to sing together.
In preparation for the workshop, we invite you to:
Create 4 written lines of roughly 8-10 syllables, inspired by your community. Your community is the people and places that matter to you, at home, or work, in your local area or online.
Think about the words you might use to describe your community - what are the sounds, smells, tastes, sights and feelings you associate with your community? What parallels exist in nature, or in the animal world?
Bring your lyrics to the workshop, and the composer and co-director of Voices Weaving - Michael Betteridge - will use them to create a song that we will sing together.
If you do not have time to prepare lyrics, there will be an opportunity to do so in the workshop.
Accessibility:
This event will take place on Zoom. Zoom Closed Captions will be available. When you register for this event there will be an opportunity to share with us any access requirements that would support your attendance.
This event is free to attend.
More information on Voices Weaving and Michael Betteridge:
What is Voices Weaving?
“We believe that the music that people sing should reflect their own experiences, and the diversity of the UK today.
Voices Weaving is a song co-creation project for community choirs, vocal collectives, and singing groups. Participants collaborate through a series of workshops with a writer and composer to create their own new song and music video, exploring themes of identity and belonging, and revealing the joy of singing together. We work with a diverse range of people highlighting the width and breadth of community singing in England today. Our latest cohort includes LGBTQ+ people in Blackpool, young people in Rochdale, men who sing in Derby, and those seeking asylum in Bradford and Liverpool, amongst many others. We believe everyone should have a voice in creative processes and Voices Weaving allows for just that. Hundreds of singers, alongside professional creatives, seeing and hearing their experiences and stories in community song."
Michael Betteridge
Described as ‘bold’, ‘colourful’ (The Times), and ‘inventive’ (Financial Times) British-Canadian composer and conductor Michael Betteridge has an eclectic output in which his music draws on the stories of people and places, past and present, animating everything from concert halls and opera stages to slate mines and market squares!
Much of his work is co-created with communities, especially in vocal, theatrical, choral and operatic settings. He has worked with the likes of BBC Philharmonic, Den Jyske Opera (Danish National Opera), Mahogany Opera, Opera North Youth Chorus, and Streetwise Opera. His work has been nominated for two Royal Philharmonic Society Awards in the Impact category (Across the Sky and Opera-tic). He is Artistic Director of The Sunday Boys – Manchester’s low voiced and open access LGBTQ+ choir. He is also co-founder of Voices Weaving – a co-created community choral project for film. He was made an Associate of the Royal Northern College of Music in 2023.
Who are 64 Million Artists?
You are creative, and you can make change. At 64 Million Artists, we're here to give you the tools to do just that. Whether that's with over 160,000 people getting creative daily throughout January, with leaders tackling climate change and gender inequality, or by inspiring workplaces to courageously support their people. The time to get creative is now.
This event is part of our year round public programme - experiences to connect and resource anyone that wants to make change in their life and the world around them.