“I love this project because it does something inherently radical. It puts the spotlight on the lives of ordinary people and chooses to tell our story. Stories are our way of sharing our insights and experiences for the benefit of each other. Song often does a similar job. Singing and storytelling are acts of sharing and connection and coming together that is deeply important, not just for our shared humanity, but for our ability to resist together and create a better world” (Alun Parry, singer/songwriter, Liverpool).

The Campaign Choirs initiative shares music, information and ideas between street choirs. We facilitate the networking of street-choirs and help co-ordinate joint projects, for example when members of different choirs join together to sing at national events. Though it only started in 2013, by 2019 the Campaign Choirs Network has 126 email subscribers representing sixty choirs of which forty-three are affiliated.

Campaign Choirs is a voluntary initiative with no paid staff and no funding. We base our activities on decisions taken in open meetings, usually conducted at the annual Street Choirs Festival. The idea for research into the life-histories of street choir members was conceived at the 2014 Festival. Ultimately, the aim is to develop the individual and collective potentials of choirs in ways that take into account the everyday realities, hopes and dreams of their members.

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Thanks to the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust for seed funding