Sing for Life 2014

Is singing along with Whitney Houston the closest you get to unleashing your inner Diva? Award-winning choral conductor Will Prideaux has a proposition for you that could see you performing on stage – for real!

Sing for Life 2014 will be launched in June with the aim of recruiting 40 diverse women from in and around Peterborough – women with a range of previous singing experience (including none!). Over the course of 12 weeks, they will rehearse to perform with Peterborough Voices in a gala charity concert hosted by BBC Radio Cambridgeshire’s Jane Smith on Saturday 11 October 2014. Together with Peterborough Male Voice Choir’s Sing for Heroes project in aid of Help for Heroes, Sing for Life has raised a staggering £20,000 plus for charity since 2010. In previous years the project has supported Cancer Research UK, but this year Sue Ryder’s Thorpe Hall appeal to raise £6 million for a purpose built state-of-the-art hospice has presented a unique opportunity to raise funds for a very worthy local cause with personal relevance for many people.

Peterborough Voices has gone on to participate in local and national competitions, record a CD – Invitation to Eternity – and tour internationally

The enormous enthusiasm of the women participating in the original Sing for Life project – organised in 2011 by the renowned Peterborough Male Voice Choir and led by their director Will Prideaux – resulted in the formation of Peterborough Voices, a women’s choir to partner Peterborough Male Voice Choir, with a fresh influx of women joining in 2012 after the second Sing for Life project. Peterborough Voices has gone on to participate in local and national competitions, record a CD – Invitation to Eternity – and tour internationally.

To date, over 200 women have participated in Sing for Life. They describe the project in terms of camaraderie, of lifelong friendships formed, broadening horizons, developing skills and personal growth – not to mention doing something really worthwhile for the community and the amazing thrill of singing in front of an audience. Many are positively evangelical about it, and speak of Sing for Life as having been nothing less than a life-changing experience. Which, let’s face it, is exactly what it should be.

‘I got talked into joining Sing for Life and didn’t for one minute think I would get in, but here I am, loving everything we do!’

Leisa Nichols-Drew is a forensic scientist from Wisbech who joined the first Sing for Life project in 2011. ‘Sing for Life has really has changed my life,’ she says. ‘Not just because I love the music and the singing, but because it is about us all being together each week and the fun things we do such as social events, competitions and trips. The last year has been pretty eventful for me on a personal and professional level but it is this choir and the lovely people in it that have put the sparkle back into my life – they are like sunshine on a rainy day!’ Angie Ford of Sawtry, who works at Papworth Hospital, also signed up in 2011. ‘I got talked… [cont]