Mike Cocke, Secretary of the Luton Choral Society, provides us with an update on his group's involvement with Making Music's INCLUDE...
Mike Cocke, Secretary of the Luton Choral Society writes about how they are embracing diversity to grow their membership.
Luton Choral Society has a unique history. We were founded in 1866 and apart from a few years during the First World War and the recent COVID pandemic, we have performed several events every year since our founding and are now in our 152 season.
Our archive includes a programme from 1879 and photos of choral performances conducted by Sir Adrian Boult amongst many other items.
Luton Choral Society programme from a performance on 5 February 1879 of Mendelssohn's oratorio.
In recent years, our numbers have been falling and there is a risk that our contribution to quality classical choral singing for the Luton community could come to an end.
Luton is a remarkably diverse town with a population of over 225,000. We were delighted that Making Music selected us to participate in their INCLUDE programme to find ways for our Society to become more diverse and inclusive, and to increase our membership.
'We are lucky to be able to partner with the Link Community Centre, which is a volunteer community group that helps minority communities settle and integrate in the UK, who have agreed to translate our event details into Polish, Romanian, and Hungarian.'
Making Music ran the Census Comparison Survey for us, which confirmed that the Society is not representative of the population as a whole and so we decided to focus on building relationships with the Eastern European communities in the UK as a first step to making the Society more representative. Eastern European nations have a tradition of choral singing, so there is an opportunity to reach out to them and encourage them to enjoy singing with us and join the Society.
Accordingly, we have arranged an inclusion-focused 'Come and Sing’ day on 16 March, which will include some Polish music and other fun pieces.
We are lucky to be able to partner with the Link Community Centre, which is a volunteer community group that helps minority communities settle and integrate in the UK, who have agreed to translate our event details into Polish, Romanian, and Hungarian.
'The vision of Luton Choral Society is to inspire and enrich the lives of our diverse community and our members through sustainable performances of quality choral music including the commissioning of new choral works.'
We hope to reach people through posts on our website and social media, which will include the details of the day in these languages.
Being on the INCLUDE programme has also helped us to focus on why we do what we do, and to remove or at least reduce any barriers to participation in choral singing. Accordingly, we have formalised and documented our vision as a Society, which previously was an unstated train of thought:
We are looking forward to the ‘Come and Sing’ day on 16 March, where we will explore inclusivity in more detail and how to further reduce barriers. We are also looking forward to our Spring performance on 13 April, at which we will perform Haydn’s Nelson Mass and Mozart’s Vespers, and Make Music Day on 21 June where we hope to include several music groups from Luton in a joint performance in central Luton. Attendees will be able to enjoy a range of excellent music at no cost.
As well as our subscription events, we also support the local community with charitable performances, especially at Christmas time where we sing carols in the town square and at several local care homes.
Find out more about the Luton Choral Society on their website
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