Bringing together four community choirs with a shared mission to break down barriers through song during lockdown.

The Circle brought the Mixed Up Chorus, Thames Opera Company, Mind & Soul and Sing for Freedom choirs together with composer Mike Roberts and lyricist Tess Berry-Hart to create a new piece ‘The Circle’, reflecting on their personal and collective experience of the global pandemic and exploring what divides and what unites us. The music video, created by Kolbassia Haoussou, Alexander Mulugeta F and Louise Stevens, follows the journeys of choir members as they unite for their first rehearsal together in-person after lockdown.

Accompanying the music video is a short documentary, in which members of the choirs share their experience of the pandemic, and what being a member of their choir has meant to them. 

The Mixed Up Chorus brings people together across cultural, religious and political divides, the Sing for Freedom choir unites refugee survivors of torture and their allies from across the UK. Both are based in Islington. The Mind and Soul Choir rehearse at the Maudsley Hospital and promote mental wellbeing through singing, and Thames Opera Company in Thurrock exists to enable everyone, regardless of their background, to participate in opera and make a difference in their local community.

They came together as part of Together Productions’ Singing Our Lives, a ground-breaking project which brings displaced people and those seeking sanctuary and local communities together with professional musicians to compose new music and perform together.

Each choir overcame numerous obstacles to stay together during the pandemic, distributing devices so that people could get online, rehearsing and recording on zoom and maintaining a strong sense of community that many say has been a lifeline and provided a much-needed boost to their wellbeing and mental health.

Sing for Freedom Choir member Kate said:

A surprising bonus of lockdown was that the choirs expanded to welcome members from across the UK and around the world. The Sing for Freedom Choir had members zooming in from Cornwall to Edinburgh, and the Mixed Up Chorus have welcomed singers from Romania, the US, Germany and Palestine. 

Holly Jones & Jeremy Haneman, Directors of Together Productions, which runs Singing Our Lives, as well as the Mixed Up Chorus and the Sing for Freedom Choir said: 

“When lockdown hit, one of the first things many people did was to connect through singing. We all remember the videos of people singing from their balconies in Italy. We’re so delighted to have been building community across the UK and around the globe through the power of music and song, which connect us all at such a fundamental level and keeps us going through some really tough times.”