It’s the time of year to start a new hobby! Across the UK thousands of choir loving folk will be dusting off their choir music and setting out again to their weekly choir rehearsal.
With the increase in community choirs post-Covid thousands again will be tuning up and preparing for concerts ahead, fundraising and Christmas!
Grenville Jones is one of the most experienced choir leaders in the UK and from next Monday his 35 choirs that are spread across the West of England and London will once again tune up at Church Halls and community rooms.
Grenville is based in Bath where he personally leads two evening mixed-voice choirs as well as the much-travelled and celebrated City of Bath Male Choir. It was 15 years ago when Grenville first introduced daytime singing with his Bath Good Afternoon Choir. Such was the success of this choir, aimed primarily at retired folk who were encouraged to ‘Sing in the Afternoon’.
Now, in 2024, there are 32 Good Afternoon Choirs across the West of England with new groups starting in Manchester, Wales and South London… and more to come.
www.goodafternoonchoir.org choirs are listed here Monday-Friday.
Grenville’s Good Afternoon Choirs employ 30 talented freelance musicians, either as choir leader or accompanist. Over 1400 people ‘sing in the afternoon’.
“The benefits of singing are well documented and with our growing number of choirs we see the positive effect of bringing people together, making music, creating new friendships and, quite simply, having fun in the afternoon and being home for the 6 o’clock news!” said Grenville.
The choirs have a strong fundraising ethos and in recent years have raised many thousands of pounds for local charitable groups and organisations.
“We prefer to support smaller groups as it is a fact of life that a donation of £1,000 to a local community group makes a terrific difference to their work and with our Good Afternoon Choirs it is the members themselves who select the local organisation/charity that they will support during their singing year,” continued Grenville.
Within the next two weeks new Good Afternoon Choirs - with no audition and warm a welcome to anyone who wants to experience singing in a choir (perhaps for the first time) will start in Chepstow, Torquay, East Croydon and Manchester… Grenville plans to add more in the months ahead, of course he does!
Apart from the weekly rehearsals and fundraising concerts there are many occasions during the year when the choirs join together to perform at a BIG SING with venues including Bristol Cathedral, Bath Abbey, Clifton Cathedral, Wells Cathedral, Malmesbury Abbey and Taunton Minster. With Christmas on the horizon many of Grenville’s Good Afternoon Choirs will welcome local primary schools with joint concerts bringing together the ‘Young with the Young at Heart’.
Apart from Grenville’s choir interests he is of course the respective founder of the Goldies Charity where Sir Cliff Richard is the Patron.
“Goldies is NOT about choir singing but quite simply fun community get togethers with over 150 sessions across England and Wales – Goldies Cymru,” said Grenville.
It’s September – it’s time to sing!
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