Primary Massed Choir Concerts

In Autumn 2024 GBRT launched a new initiative to provide musical opportunities to primary school pupils in the Harborough area, in partnership with Robert Smyth Academy, Harborough Alliance for Music Education and LeicesterShire Music. Singing, and particularly singing in a choir, has been proven to have many benefits including:

• releasing endorphins, serotonin and dopamine – ‘happy’ hormones that boost mood - increasing the level of oxygen into the blood and increasing lung capacity
• improving breathing which in turn helps to release anxiety and stress
• improving mental alertness, memory and concentration
• building a sense of community with the people we are singing with
• boosting confidence and self-esteem.

The concerts bring together Year 5 pupils from local primary schools to sing together as a massed choir of over 100 voices. Our fabulous choir leader Graham Vick, a professional singer and actor with over 25 years’ experience of working in the West End, rep theatre and Shakespeare’s Globe visited each school providing 4.5 hours of free coaching to teach them the songs for the concert.  The schools then come together for a performance to parents and family members at Robert Smyth Academy, which also features performances by some of RSA’s fabulous ensemble and young musicians to show the primary school children what they can achieve if they learn to play an instrument. The project is funded by ticket sales to parents, set at an affordable level. 

Four concerts have held so far with Meadowdale Primary School, Great Bowden Academy, Ridgeway Primary Academy, Church Langton CE Primary School, St Joseph’s Catholic Voluntary Academy, Market Harborough CE Academy, Little Bowden Primary School and Farndon Fields Academy taking part.