Singers Inspired, under the musical directorship of Carol O'Neill, began life as a community choir in October 2004, having evolved from its previous incarnation, Voices Allowed, which began a year earlier and had been the brain child of the Lodge Farm Project.

Lodge Farm hoped to establish a community choir in the Downham Market area as well as facilitating several other musically based projects in schools and the wider community.

When Lodge Farm withdrew their support in October 2004 members of Voices Allowed really wanted their fledgling choir to continue. We all felt the choir was worthwhile and wonderful, and everyone wanted to carry on meeting and singing together - and so out of the ashes of one choir another grew.

Those of the choir who remember those first few weeks, will recollect that despite our determination, it seemed nigh on impossible that we'd be able to carry on. We very quickly needed to track down funding, form a committee and draw up a constitution, whilst at the same time ensuring that the members continued meeting and singing together.

At one point things were so tight that one of the then choir members had to under write the expenditure to ensure that we could continue. While the grant applications were processed choir members showed their ingenuity by raising money with curry nights, cakes stalls and classes.

The minutes of those early meetings show a great flurry of activity as the ad hoc committee got to work on the very real issues of funding to meet the cost of Carol's fees, hall rental and insurance, along with drawing up a constitution which reflected the kind of inclusive and welcoming group we still feel ourselves to be.

On 11th November the choir voted to decide on a new name. We quickly whittled the choices down to a short list of 2. Singers Inspired, which came from the lyrics of a song that Carol had written for the choir and Amabile which is Latin for lovingly. Singers Inspired won by two votes.

Paul Simon Songbook Workshop.

Downham Market's community Choir, Singers Inspired, held another highly successful, all day, singing workshop, at Denver Village Hall, on Saturday 13th June 2009.

Forty participants experienced an exhilarating day of harmony singing, led by Chris Rowbury.

Chris is a member of the Natural Voice Practioners' Network who believe that everyone can sing regardless of experience or background. Some people had travelled considerable distances to be there, coming from as far afield as Lincolnshire and Oxfordshire and several of them had never attended a workshop of this type before.

Feedback at the end of the day was extremely positive with everyone agreeing that the day had been an uplifting experience. Rachel who had travelled from Oxford to be there said that "it was well worth the journey".

During the day the group worked on songs written by Paul Simon. Three favourites were "Homeward Bound", "Cecilia", and "Homeless". The energy and enthusiasm that Chris brought to the day was infectious and as a result the quality of the singing was remarkable. He congratulated the singers on their ability to pick up their parts so quickly and said that at one point he had wondered whether he had brought enough material.

Singers Inspired organise these workshops as part of their yearly programme. We are a group of people who love to sing but don't necessarily have any formal knowledge of music and therefore need to learn songs by ear.

We are always keen to recruit new members and details can be found on this website.

(click on picture to enlarge)