2020 started off a bit different for us, with our Spring Term headed up by guest choir leader Adam Saunders as our founder Leanne Sedin took some time out of London. However nothing could have prepared us (or indeed any choir the world over) for quite how different the whole year of choir was about to become!
As we look back on a very challenging year, we deeply feel the loss of singing and meeting together regularly. (We always knew it meant a lot to us, but goodness knows we’re feeling a sense of “don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone” in its absence.) At the same time we’re grateful, despite all the restrictions, for the ways we’ve been able to continue to connect online, and keep singing even if only from our separate homes! It isn’t the same, of course, as being together in person… but we’ll take it until such times as that’s possible again.
2020 gave us eight normal rehearsals at the start of the year (remember those heady pre-pandemic days?!), one cancelled concert, 17 “Sing Tower Homelets” Zoom sessions, two virtual choir videos, two socially-distanced in-person rehearsals in October, and most recently, an epic online Christmas fundraiser!
Since STH started in 2013, our December gig has been our biggest event of the year, bringing a huge helping of festive joy and raising money for the wonderful GrowTH night shelter. It was very strange for us to be looking towards a concert-less Christmas, but we were determined to still fundraise for GrowTH despite the restrictions. So on 17th December, we did a live-streamed Christmas concert – a mix of live and pre-recorded performances, home singalongs, archive choir footage, and the premiere of our virtual choir video, Put A Little Love In Your Heart!
We were absolutely DELIGHTED to have been able to raise an amazing £3130 for GrowTH through this event! HUGE thanks to everyone who donated so generously ❤️ This was just the kind of brilliant news we needed at the end of a very difficult year!
singtowerhamlets.com 