Artistic Director, Mairéad Sheerin, has run a choir for Morden College residents since 2017.
The College and Conservatoire are both historic landmarks and community hubs of Blackheath village, although Morden College’s 300 years in existence is double our own impressive record! According to the residents, the choir is the longest running activity from an external provider.
What does the choir mean to me? How can one find the words to truly explain what happens to the heart and soul when we sing together? Our choir is healing, it is restorative, it is spiritual. We become a united group of people wanting to express ourselves through music. It makes me feel liberated from the stresses of life, it gives me an hour a week of communal pleasure with other residents.
A group of people who are not instinctive singers ... or who have not sung for decades. What could possibly go wrong? As it happens, not much. It's fun, it's teamwork, it gets the brain working ... and after the weeks of practice there's actually a result! Uplifting stuff.
We know that music promotes well-being - it has the power to move, to relax, to energise, to console and singing is particularly beneficial for improving breathing, posture and muscle tension. When we sing, the neurochemical β-endorphin, a natural painkiller responsible for the ‘high’ experienced after intense exercise, is released. This, alongside dopamine and serotonin, leads directly to an improved mood. The stress hormone, cortisol, is reduced and the Immunoglobin A antibody is boosted – these factors lead to sustaining a healthy immune system.
Learning new songs is also cognitively stimulating and helps the memory so can aid those suffering dementia. Socially too, there is more and more evidence suggesting that our social connections can play a role in maintaining our health.
The choir has gone from strength to strength and now numbers over 30 singers from residents and staff. Members were delighted to return to communal singing after Covid.
Here are just a few lovely quotes from choir members:
Singing has become much more popular since Covid, especially for members of choirs who were forced to "singalongazoom" in living rooms, maybe with a handy cup of coffee. Thanks goodness we can now meet "live" and sing our hearts out.
I was thrilled to discover on moving to Morden College, that there was a choir. With the help of Blackheath Conservatoire we have been able to make music together. We are a friendly bunch where nobody is auditioned to join or turned away. Singing is for anyone and everyone, we can ALL sing, even if not always in tune. We have performed a few times each year, growing more confident and taking great pleasure in showing what we can do. From Verdi to McCartney, we have an eclectic mix of repertoire.
We are all very grateful to Mairead and Micah for their help week on week. Their patience, kindness and humour help to make this the highlight of my week. Singing is FREE, yet it has amazing medicial advantages for our better mental health. Above all, Morden College Choir is, quite simply, GREAT FUN
The Evelina is a trailblazing children’s hospital, offering not only world-leading care in a compassionate setting, but also offering a range of innovative programmes to stimulate patients keeping them mentally, socially and emotionally occupied.The Conservatoire currently provides one-to-one mini-harp tuition and we hope to expand this to guitar, songwriting and music technology.
Opportunities for creative enrichment are increasingly being side-lined in the school curriculum, leading to us developing a new partnership with St. Matthew Academy (after successful past projects with Trinity Lee, Thomas Tallis and John Roan).
The Conservatoire provides high quality, small group, violin tuition on-site in the school, offering year 7, 8 and 9 students creative fulfilment conveniently slotted into their working day. It’s been a delight seeing them blossom and the cognitive, social and emotional benefits of learning a musical instrument.
We were very pleased to provide Early Years workshops to the nursery to complement their curriculum and their focus on wellbeing. In the Summer 2022 term the children enjoyed a music workshop based on their topic of travel, as well as a yoga and mindfulness workshop exploring how to express their feelings.
In Autumn 2022, we provided more workshops on their curriculum topic and yoga/wellbeing workshops in Summer 2023.
We have been working with the Midi Music Company since 2003. The Midi Music Company is an innovative music education and talent development charity, based in Deptford, south London. Their mission is to champion excellence through educational programmes, nurturing the musical talent of vulnerable and disadvantaged young people aged 11-30, and empower them with the skills and confidence to seek careers in music and the creative industries.
In collaboration with the Tom ap Rhys Pryce Music Bursary Award and London Borough of Lewisham, four children from The Budding Musicians Club, aged between six and fifteen years old, were offered a year’s free, one-to-one instrumental tuition with us at the Conservatoire. The subsequent success of the bursary winners enabled us to increase the number of awards from four to ten per year with the financial support of the Tom ap Rhys Pryce Memorial.
We have since added to this partnership by introducing extended burseries for the bursary winners who displayed the highest level of commitment and talent, offering a further two years of tuition. Past winner of the Midi bursary, Michelle O’Faith, won the ‘Women Make Music Award’ funded by PRSF, and expressed her gratitude to both the Conservatoire and Midi Music.
