Community Uplift
VICTORIA KINGHAM muses on a growing choral phenomenon emanating from Bexhill.
In a recent issue we printed a list of local choirs who were to take part in The Big Sing, an annual local choir event, which we thought would be of interest for anyone who would like to join a choir. There are a great many, and members usually hear of them by word of mouth rather than active research, web or otherwise.
It has therefore only recently come to my attention that there are two very large choirs singing joyfully nearby, led actively by musician Day Levale. “Are you ready to be lifted up?” they ask. “Our community choirs based in Bexhill and Eastbourne are continuing to go from strength to strength. With performances planned across the South East, including our incredible end of year concert taking place at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, there’s never been a better time to join our family.”
Lifted Up Community Choirs “strive to lift spirits, bring smiles and unite through singing gospel, soul and inspirational music.” Catching the rehearsal for their next big concert was fascinating. The songs they sing are part-devotional (mostly gospel), part soul music: classics like Ray Charles’ I Can’t Stop Loving You, Bill Withers’ Lovely Day, Carole King’s You’ve Got a Friend, Whitney Houston’s Joy To The World. All, as they advertise, inspirational.
How Levale achieves his performances with 100 people who are largely unschooled in formal music might well be the topic of an Independent feature in the near future. Watching him rehearse both soloists and choir was notable for its informality, and also for a strong feeling of group unity. Here’s a man who knows how to sing and has been singing for most of his life, transferring his enthusiasm and skill to a diverse assembly on the South Coast. They had already learned their musical parts (and the choir is conventionally divided into sopranos, altos, tenors, and baritones) by having them sung to them – the soprano and alto parts pitched accurately in falsetto. The singers read only the lyrics, aiming to be off-book by December, so there will be no physical artefact like a word sheet between themselves and the audience. The harmony parts, I think, come from Levale’s head, though the arrangements are a collaboration between him and the keyboard player. His free and flexible musicality seems largely the result of lifelong practice in a particular milieu,within a gospel church community. He also, incidentally, plays various instruments and keeps a music shop in Bexhill where local musicians take instruments to be repaired – “quite a hangout for cool people,” laughs one of their community.
They are accompanied by a keyboard player and a backing track, conventionally amplified. The soloists have microphones. They sing, intentionally, in the style of all the best gospel/blues singers, and the articulation of the lyrics is largely American, or perhaps what they call transatlantic. You’d wonder why, until you realise that to sing Don’t Let Nobody Drag Your Spirit Down in any other style sounds absurd. Why it does is probably the topic of a PhD in musicology, but anyway Please Don’t Let Anybody Reduce your Buoyancy of Mood would be a British equivalent and nobody would want to go there.
St John’s Centre is a church in Bexhill largely given over to community activities. They practise for a whole afternoon, long in comparison to many choirs, and sometimes twice a week. I look forward to seeing and hearing the final result at De La Warr on 10 December. I am sure that it will be, at the very least, uplifting.
The Lifted Up Community Choir performs at DLWP on Sunday 10 December, 6.30 pm. Tickets at dlwp.com/event/lifted-up-community-choir/, choir details at liftedupcommunitychoirs.com
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