It’s an award-winning choir with a twist – they can’t sing.
The Dee Sign Choir will perform at the Eagles Meadow shopping centre, in Wrexham, on Saturday, December 10, between 11am and 3.30pm.
The lyrics are all in the hands for the choir, most of whom are profoundly deaf or hard of hearing.
According to the choir’s director, Anne Hesketh, choir members have plenty to celebrate having just won a national competition for the second year running.
Anne said: “We have just won the Open Class Section at the Jersey Eisteddfod.
“One of our deaf members, who has been in the choir for 10 years, was selected to go on stage and collect the award. He was so proud and held it up high, he didn’t want to leave the stage.
“I am sure, as a deaf person, he never imagined being on stage at the Jersey Opera House receiving a cup for performing to music!”
Anne says shoppers at Eagles Meadow are in for a real treat as the choir will be performing a number of Christmas carols as well as some of their own personal favourites.
She said: “The choir is made up of 60 members, some of whom are profoundly deaf, some who are hard of hearing, others are parents of deaf children, while a few are adults who have deaf parents as well as British sign language students.
“We are based at the Chester Deaf centre but our members come from across the region. We have members from Wrexham, Mold, Abergele and other Welsh towns as well as Cheshire towns as far a field as Macclesfield.
“The choir may be based in Chester but we help deaf and hard of hearing people right across the region.”
“The choir does brilliant work promoting deaf awareness and the beauty of sign language as well as raising much-needed funds for Chester and District Committee for Deaf People and the Deafness Support Network. In fact we have raised more than £150,000 since the choir was first formed in 1997.
“The problem is deafness and issues surrounding hard of hearing are not so obvious. If someone has cancer the need for funds to help them is obvious but that isn’t the case for the deaf.
“Every penny we raise goes to support deaf and hard of hearing people and their families. A hard of hearing person may need up to five pieces of equipment to be able to live a normal life.
“For example, flashing light doorbells, something to simply wake them on time in a morning, a whole variety of things and they all cost money.”
Anne says signing the songs they perform ‘in tune’ is just as tough as if they were singing them.
She said: “We film someone signing a new song and then each choir member is given a DVD of the recording. That way they can practice and learn it at home.
“We then bring it all together and perform it as one. Some songs are easier to sign to than others but some of our younger members don’t like the sort of songs the, shall we call them, more senior members, do.
“As a result they formed their own choir, Dee Sign Dynamix, which is made up of youngsters aged eight to 15.
“Despite only being formed in February this year they came away from Jersey with a silver award in the Under 18 class which was a brilliant achievement.”
According to Anne there are more than 70,000 people living in the UK who use British sign language as their sole means of communication while there are many thousands of hard of hearing people.
She said: “I would encourage people to come down to Eagles Meadow and watch us perform and maybe join in and have a go at signing themselves. We need as much support as we can and aim to put on a really good show for Christmas shoppers and visitors.”
