Every Wednesday morning members of the Winchcombe Community Choir gather at the Abbey Fields Centre to enjoy their weekly practice. The songs they sing are anything but traditional choir songs though, with a repertoire of world music the order of the day for the 50 members of the choir.

Inclusivity is the keyword for the community choir, who welcome even the most novice singers into their team, something Choir Leader Liz Hooper says sums up the ethos of the vocal group. She said: “We’re a choir that prides itself on offering opportunities to everyone. We don’t care if you’ve never sung before, as long as you’re enthusiastic and want to learn you’ll be made very welcome.

“A lot of our members are from Winchcombe and the surrounding villages, but we do have some people who travel from as far away as Stratford-upon-Avon. Our whole ethos is about being as inclusive as possible – we don’t hold auditions and we’re not concerned if people wanting to join us have never been in a choir before. We want to offer opportunities to everyone.

“I belong to The Natural Voice Network and their main belief is that everyone has the right to sing without the fear of being judged or criticised, that’s what we’re all about. We get an awful lot of people who come and tell us they haven’t sung since their school days so it’s really great to welcome them and give them opportunities to join our choir. People even turn up and tell us they can’t sing, usually after a few practice sessions their confidence has shot through the roof and they are belting out the songs!”

The choir are quite different from most vocal ensembles, they don’t sing traditional choir songs but focus more on performing world music, something Liz says is easier to pick up for her members. She continued: “We sing songs from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds. We tend not to sing traditional choir music. We sing a lot of world music, songs from Africa, Europe and south America, which are everyday songs that people sing naturally. The harmonies are very easy to pick up. We do occasionally sing pop songs but it’s mostly world music which we focus on. It’s fantastic to be involved in a choir that’s unique, we’re not singing songs that any other choirs sing, we like to be original.

“Anyone who wants to get involved should come to our Wednesday morning practice sessions. We usually have 45 members turn up every week. It’s not just about the singing – it’s nice from a social point of view for people to get together regularly. We often perform at fetes and festivals, it’s lovely to get out and play new venues.”