Singing Workshop 26th September 2026- Report

Members of Stour Choral Society were joined joined by 30+singers from the local area for their annual open singing workshop on Saturday.

The theme of the Workshop this year was ‘the beauty of the earth’ and was run as part of the Manningtree Earth Festival. Ironically the day had been postponed from June when it was too hot to run it!

Susie Rose led a very enjoyable and entertaining day, teaching four songs pertinent to the theme- ‘Let there be peace on earth’ ( Sy Miller, Jill Jackson), ‘For the beauty of the earth’(John Rutter), ‘Down by the Riverside’(traditional- arrangement M. McDonald) and ‘What a wonderful world’ (Weiss, Thiele)

Interwoven into the day was plenty of teaching about singing technique, breathing exercises and working as a choir to carry off a good quality performance.

The choir had the opportunity to put this all into practice with a short performance of the day’s music at the end of the afternoon.

Many thanks to Stephen Smith, who was our accompanist for the day, and to Arnrid Wood who spoke on behalf of PACE Manningtree, and to the Stour Choral Society committee for organising a very special day.