On Saturday night 7 December 2013 our local community choir, Songlines, conducted by Bruce Knight, gave a concert at St Mary’s Church, in Leamington Spa, to raise money for Water Aid.
It was a night where we saw and felt the power of music to bring joy and to uplift.
A standing ovation and calls for an encore confirmed this.
Our programme encompassed community choir arrangements of the moving Zulu song Egalile, full of exhuberant synchronized movements, including our well-rehearsed African shuffle; Let the River Run by Carly Simon, Sunday Morning by Reed & Cale, arr.Knight; the Beatles’ song Nowhere Man; Wake Up by Nick Prater arr. Ali Orbaum, and the Samoan song Fa’afetai i le Atua arr. Tony Backhouse.
A smaller group called Extra-stronglines also sang the gorgeous harmonies of the Beatles’ song Because.
A highlight was a performance of the South African National anthem Nkosi Sikeleli’l Afrika in tribute to the recent passing of Nelson Mandela.
And at the end, we walked off the stage, singing Love is like a river, let it flow, let it flow, let it flow.
Long may we celebrate the gift of music in our lives.
scskillman.com 
Hear hear! I just love being part of Songlines… there is indeed something so uplifting about this kind of choir. I am a novice to choir singing, and I don’t read music. So this inclusive approach enables me to experience the utter joy of being part of a choral community in this way. and Bruce, of course, is just brilliant!
Thank you Marie. And tonight at my other choir rehearsal I had people coming up to me, who had been in the audience at the Songlines concert, saying how wonderful they thought the concert was. Again the word “uplifting” was used. And another comment made was about the fact that all the singers are looking up, and not burying their heads in sheet music or scores. And what a difference it makes to the quality of the singing. I said, “Bruce must be the most watched conductor for miles around!”