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Founder Marie Benton takes a Choir With No Name rehearsal at the Only Connect Theatre in Cubitt Street, King’s Cross |
Gimme Shelter? Choir for homeless
First singing group for rough sleepers are a big hit as they perform rock, reggae and soul classics
FROM sleeping rough to singing gruff, at least during their first practice, a choir has emerged from the streets of the West End.
They are “The Choir With No Name”, Britain’s first and only homeless choir. And while they are yet to grace the Albert Hall, their swooning harmonies could soon be heard in a concert venue near you.
Beginning life from an advert in London homeless magazine The Pavement last year – it read, “Can you sing? No? Oh well come along anyway” – the choir has grown so fast they now count 30 fully fledged members in their ranks.
Marie Benton, 33, got the idea for the choir when she thought to combine her hobby directing a gospel choir, with her day job working in St Mungo’s Hostel in Covent Garden.
“I got the idea just after I started at St Mungo’s,” she said. “I was working with the gospel choir at St Patrick’s [in Soho Square] and had kind of been a professional musician so I knew that music and choirs especially had that power to make people happy and forget about their worries.
“At our first rehearsal we had four people through the door, which was four more than I expected to be honest. One of the challenges has been retaining numbers, but when I sat down to look at the figures, we’ve pretty much had a new member every fortnight. And they’ve progressed so much, they really sound quite good.”
Singing rock, soul, gospel, reggae and even musicals, the choir rehearse once a week in the Only Connect Theatre in Cubitt Street, King’s Cross.
They have a string of major concerts to their name including Camberwell’s festival of music and arts, Bonkerfest, and have attracted a lot of attention in their short history, appearing on the Channel 4 television programme The Secret Millionaire, as well as a slot on Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4.
Ms Benton says her ultimate dream is to fly their members over to Australia to perform a double bill with the world’s only other known homeless choir – Melbourne’s Choir of Hard Knocks.
“The sense of community in this choir is amazing,” she said. “We sit down and have a meal together after every practice. Australia would be nice, but in the next couple of years we want to try and set up a homeless choir in every major UK city with a homeless population.
“The other thing we want to do is release a CD and hopefully get a famous singer-songwriter on board to help us with it.
“The whole thing has been amazing. A guy came up to me the other day and said being in the choir was the first time he had had any fun since his childhood.”
The choir are holding a concert on March 26 to celebrate their first birthday. For more information about tickets and how to join, visit www.choirwithnoname.org |
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