Well, it’s been quite a year! With the promising news on vaccine rollout, and the end of lockdown timetable apparently progressing as planned (fingers crossed), it looks like Summer 2021 should be the last term on Zoom for Cambridge and Leith Hill Timeline Choirs. We’ll be kicking off with two open sessions, which anybody can attend, on Tuesday 27th and Thursday 29th April (sign up here).

It’s been a tough year, but we think we’ve made the best of it. Of course we’ve missed singing together in the same room (terribly!)… and it’s fair to say that we (Stef and Claire) will breathe a massive sigh of relief when the time comes to put technology to one side… But there have been huge silver linings in all of this upheaval too! Welcoming new temporary members from outside Cambridge/Surrey has been an absolute delight, and we’ve been so privileged to welcome our new Dutch members, as well as friends from around the UK. We’ll be thinking hard about how to keep these precious connections in future, when things move back to their usual locations. For now, it’s full steam ahead with preparations for what we hope will be our last ever Timeline Together Term, with a plan to move back to in-person singing in the autumn. Getting together to sing later in the summer may well become possible, but we’ll provide a full term of Zoom choir and aim to schedule any in-person singing as an additional activity, outside of those rehearsals, as and when it becomes possible.

As always, the goal this term will be to recreate the togetherness of choral singing in spite of us being physically apart. The theme is music for the summer season (including summery shape-note songs, rounds, folksongs, and even a summer hymn), and ‘songs of home’ – music with words and melodies from our local areas. In the latter category we have a brand new commission by Chris Leadham (a song set in Cambridge Town), brand new arrangements by Stef and Claire, and music to celebrate local saints, who have their festivals in May and June, including a hymn about Æthelryth, the 7th-century Abbess of Ely! We’ll also be inviting members to share songs from where they grew up. Like last term, Claire and Stef will continue to work together and Leith Hill and Cambridge members are welcome to attend rehearsals on Tuesdays with Claire and/or Thursdays with Stef. We’re also continuing to welcome new members, taking advantage of the opportunity to sing with friends from around the world… So tell your friends! 🙂

We will keep you well-stocked with heart-warming harmony during these troubling times!

From Tuesday 27th  and Thursday 29th April

to Tues 6th and Thursday 8th July

(With a HALF TERM break in the week commencing Monday 31st May.)

Leith Hill Timeline Choir Begins the Spring Term with a Zoom session on Tuesday 27th April, 7:30–8:30pm, live from Claire’s living room. Invitations to the Zoom rehearsals arrive by email at the beginning of every week. If you’d like to sing with us, you can either: sign up for the open session on 27th April, email Claire to join or read more here.

Cambridge Timeline Choir begins with a Zoom session on Thursday 29th April, 7:00–8:00pm, live from Stef’s living room (now featuring special guest performers, Maxi and Maia, the Bengal Terrors of Madras Road). Invitations to the Zoom rehearsals arrive by email at the beginning of every week. If you’d like to sing with us, you can either: sign up for the open session on 29th April, email Stef to join or read more here. N.B., the different timings for Cambridge and Leith Hill.

Timeline Choir is a community singing group with a difference: although it is open to all, with no auditions and no requirement for members to be able to read music, the choir is set apart by its specially-arranged and artistically ambitious repertoire, which celebrates the heritage of the local area, from Anglo-Saxon times to the present day.

JOIN US!