An upbeat Swansea choir is inviting shoppers to swing along to its collection of catchy tunes when it performs at the Quadrant Shopping Centre in the city on Saturday, April 5.
Almost 90 members of Vocal Harmony, which was put together by local composer and songwriter Bobby Cole, will be belting out a selection of classic pop numbers from stars such as Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Take That in the centre for an hour, starting from 2pm.
Bobby, 29, from Dunvant, has written background music for a number of TV shows including Welsh-based MTV reality show The Valleys and the show Children’s Hospital on the Cartoon Network Channel.
But he wanted to bring his fresh approach to the creation of choral music and 18 months ago he set out to recruit singers for a new Swansea-based vocal outfit he had in mind.
He said: “I’d sung in choirs when I was younger. Most were the traditional type singing hymns but I wanted to start a different kind of choir, which would provide a completely new experience – with no auditions and no requirement to read music.
“I started recruiting my choir the hard way, visiting every street, village and town in the Swansea area and putting up posters in shop windows and other places.
“I spent two or three weeks doing that and eventually got together enough people to hold the first rehearsal for the choir, which I named Vocal Harmony.
“We had 50 people turning up at Sketty Park Community Centre and it’s just grown from there.
“We now have 87 members and we meet every Monday evening, from 7.30-9pm, at Bishop Gore School in Sketty.”
Ian Kirkpatrick, Manager of the Quadrant Shopping Centre, said: “We do try to make the shopping experience as enjoyable as we can for our customers and we thought it would bring something different to the Centre to have a choir performing.
“Swansea people love their music and there’s a great choral tradition here so I’m sure they’ll enjoy the experience.”
Bobby added: “There are no auditions and nobody has to read music to get into the choir.
“There’s no pressure. It’s just a group of people who want to enjoy singing with no strings attached.
“We don’t do hymns or traditional choral music and the numbers we perform are all by the likes of Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Take That.
“Choir members come from all walks of life and range in age from 18 to their seventies. Although it’s mainly women we do have about 10 per cent men in the ranks.
“We perform as often as possible at community venues in the Swansea area and when we do indoor dates and charge for admission all the money we raise goes to the Tŷ Hafan children’s hospice in Cardiff.
“Things have been going so well that we’ve already started a second choir in Llanelli and in September we’re planning to start a third in Neath/Port Talbot.
“I lead the Swansea choir and we’re pulling in local music teachers to help us with the other two groups.”
Bobby explained that members of Vocal Harmony were all looking forward to performing in for the first time in front of a large and appreciative home crowd at the Quadrant Centre on April 5.
He said: “I approached the management team at the shopping centre about us performing there free of charge and they were over the moon about the idea.
“The choir members are all itching to get there and do the concert. They’ve been rehearsing for it now for the past 10 weeks, so it should be brilliant.
“We’re singing for about an hour and among the numbers we will be doing are Blame It On The Boogie by Michael Jackson, Don’t Stop by Fleetwood Mac, Car Wash by Rose Royce and Never Forget by Take That.
“April 5 is a double-header for us because straight after appearing at the Quadrant we’ll be doing another performance at Castle Gardens in Swansea, starting from about 3pm.”
For more details about Vocal Harmony, visit their website at: http://www.vocalharmonychoir.co.uk/
