A colleague who leads the University Interweb Presence (not his official title, which I can’t now recall) was reflecting on the recent success of the Gareth Malone Choir-in-the-Workplace phenomenon, and the idea of getting people involved in music who might not otherwise do so. With the new music building here at Kent now in operation, what about doing something similar here ?

A great idea, I said; a chance to involve more of the University community in music-making, and to entice staff into this fantastic performing space who might otherwise not cross the threshold.

That was on a Friday; an exchange of e-mails with one of the Senior Managers in the Estates department, who sprang into action and sent out an invitation to her team to participate, and six working days later a group of about twenty-five of the Estates department duly arrived on Tuesday lunchtime. (That must be some kind of record, surely…)

A ring of chairs in the concert-hall was our workshop arena, and we played a variety of muscial and rhythmic games, tongue-twisters, call-and-response pieces, and forty minutes later had a working choir who were champing at the bit to work on some suitably festive pieces to sing at the end of this term around the University Christmas tree. There was much laughter, lots of leaping around making star-shapes and strange faces, but what came through most strongly was a tremendous sense of fun, combined with a willingness to take on absolutely any activity which I was prepared to throw at them, and which they threw back in spades with an infectious enthusiasm.

So; here’s our first term plan – singing a couple of festive pieces and some Gershwin in four weeks’ time. None of the singers reads music, or has done very much singing before, and we’ve three rehearsals to pull something together. Can we do it ? Watch this space…