A TOP conductor and music teacher to the stars is urging aspiring singers with no musical experience to join a new community choir in Didcot.
Sarah Tenant-Flowers, who coached Coronation Street star Bradley Walsh on BBC2’s Maestro last year, is urging people who have always longed to sing, but never had the nerve, to join the Didcot Community Gos-pel Choir, which was laun-ched at St Peter’s Church, in Newlands Avenue, earlier in the month.
About 60 people turned up for the first rehearsal – many inspired by watching BBC2’s The Choir: Unsung Town, in which celebrity choirmaster Gareth Malone tries to persuade residents of South Oxhey, in Hertfordshire, to take up singing.
Dr Tenant-Flowers, of Church Street, Upton, said: “The turnout was amazing. There were people watching the TV programme who said they had wished they could do something similar, and now this has come along.
“It was really exciting – I didn’t know if we’d get two men and a dog, or a crowd.”
She added: “The idea is to get a choir going that people might join whether they had previous singing experience or not. Every member of the community, regardless of age, experience, or anything else, can take part.”
The choir, which will start by singing gospel and R’n’B, including Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, Down By The Riverside and Oh, Happy Day, will meet on alternate Wednesdays at the church. The next rehearsal is this coming week, from 7.30pm to 9pm.
Dr Tenant-Flowers, 49, is one of the top choral conductors in the country. She is the choir director of the University of Nottingham, artistic director of Singscape and associate music director of the Brandenburg Sinfonia.
In Maestro, she was seen teaching conducting to Mr Walsh, who played Danny Baldwin in Coronation Street, as he competed against other celebrities to win a chance to conduct the BBC Concert Orchestra at a Proms In The Park concert.
Dr Tenant-Flowers said: “It was great fun – Bradley is such a character. The main battle was to try to stop him cracking jokes all the time.
“As I usually work with musicians, it was exciting to work with somebody who couldn’t read music at all.”
didcot@oxfordmail.co.uk
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