Events

Song for the Winter Solstice

Customers at a Bournemouth bar were bewitched on the night of the 2011 Winter Solstice as Ali Sharpe and the nine members of her Acapella Choir appeared in the costume of druid priestesses and wove a spell of close harmony singing that echoed back across thousands of years.

Grand Grotesque Parade

Saturday 24 September saw a unique, unsettling and totally immersive occasion - the artistic recreation of a long forgotten "Grotesque Carnival Parade" that had been staged in Bournemouth a century earlier. Ali Sharpe was the driving force behind the musical dimension of the event. She wrote the music which consisted of multilayered harmonies performed by a choir of 50 women dressed as eerily white-faced Edwardian suffragettes.

After training and rehearsing the choir she conducted and led them in a slow march from the Pier to the town centre. Together with the other elements of the parade, they moved in time to the steady hypnotic beat of drums as she directed them with the aid of a megaphone and a mobile pulpit.

Ali ha been working working on two other major projects recently:

• The Monochronium Artathon - in which artist Hazel Evans produced a new work of art involving sound, action and images inspired by the master of surrealism, Salvador Dali.
• Sea Rhythms Online - A special commission for Bournemouth Arts by the Sea Festival produced by Rob Parkinson in collaboration with Field Effect.

Upcoming performances

• Community Gospel choir - Fundraising concert at the Bourne Spring Centre; Boscombe - Saturday 24th March 7.30-9.30pm.

ITALIAN TOUR

The Bournemouth Community Gospel Choir has recently returned from a 5-day concert tour performing in Florence and the surrounding area.

The choir received a warm welcome at St Mark's Church in Florence and the "host town" of Montecatini Terme where over 300 of the townspeople turned out to attend the open-air evening concert performed on the steps of the "Basilica".

The choir received a standing ovation for their energetic and inspirational performance. You can see a video on the choirs page.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO JOIN US?

Details about joining one of the choirs can be found on the choirs page. You can also have private lessons.