Joining a choir is one of the easiest ways to meet people. Whether that’s getting to know people in your local area, finding other people who love to sing great choral music together or simply the joy of finding your voice and sharing that with others, choirs offer all sorts of wonderful singing and social opportunities. Some people even find the love of their life at choir and definitely share lots of wonderful musical and social experiences together.

This is certainly true for many of us in the London Philharmonic Choir so, as this month celebrates The UN International Day of Friendship on the 30th July, we thought we’d take a look at choirs and friendship – as well as saying farewell to our lovely chorus director of 30 years, Neville Creed, who has of course become a special choral friend to us all. We’ll also be working on vocal health with our Associate Choral Director Tori Longdon and continuing our preparation for the Proms with our choral friends, the BBC Symphony Chorus.

Science shows that there’s something particularly special about singing together that creates strong friendship bonds more quickly and more effectively than any other group activity. A 2015 study from the University of Oxford found that strangers who sang together for an hour emerged from the sessions with an unusually close bond, “as if they’d known each other since primary school – which doesn’t normally happen if you spend an hour in the company of strangers,” reported Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Oxford. “Singing is one of the mega-mechanisms we use for bonding,” he continued and explained that a large part of that apparently is to do with the activation of endorphins, especially oxytocin, which creates a sense of contentment and peace with the world. “Singing is an incredibly potent trigger for that. The bigger the group, the better it works, and that doesn’t happen with any other bonding process we use.” No wonder we all feel connected so quickly and strongly when we sing together then, it’s the chemistry! That, and the hours and hours we spend together in rehearsals, all working to one wonderful goal of creating great music together (and maybe a few hours at the pub as well!).

Choir members and great friends Martha, Olivia, Jess, Kathryn, Jo and Hannah all met through singing in the Choir and have been friends for more than ten years now.

“Although we’d been in the choir for a couple of years, we really bonded over hours spent rehearsing together in 2017 for the Tallis/Mahler Concert and the following year for the Lindberg/Janacek/Stravinsky concert and have been firm friends as a group since then. We have been together to celebrate weddings, babies, 30th and 40th birthdays, new homes, new chapters and even a coronation. We’ve travelled to Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Wight and Guildford in order to spend quality time together. And, we’ve supported each other through challenging times in our lives (but that’s enough about the Ligeti Prom!). 

During the Covid pandemic our regular online meetings, choir-themed quizzes, LPC singing and wine-tasting activities provided invaluable emotional comfort and escapism when of course we couldn’t get together and sing. Just to see and share with each other on the screen helped to keep our special bond going, although of course we kept in touch outside of choir as well.

It is so special to have made such close, lifelong friendships with people from different places and professions but linked together by our LPC experience – we would never have met each other in any other circumstances. Together in the choir we have enjoyed so many memorable concerts and moments of friendship and fun. These days we can’t always do all of the concerts as we’re busy with our families but we always make sure we’re all at our annual choral reunion for Waterloo Carols; it marks the start of Christmas for us six and really gets us into the spirit!”

There are many and varied friendship groups in the LPC which have lasted and evolved over the years, and lots of different experiences are lived and shared with our choral friends in all kinds of different social settings. Only a few weeks ago, for example, a group of LPC friends travelled to Spain to celebrate and sing at the wedding of one of our tenors and on July 5th around 50 Choir members will be taking part in the London Pride event.

In mid June, the biggest group of choir friends (that’s every LPC member who wanted to come along) gathered to celebrate thirty fabulous years of musical leadership by our outgoing Chorus Director, Neville Creed, and to thank him for all that he has done for us during those three decades. Neville is now moving on to more peaceful Monday evenings away from the busy demands of our central London rehearsals, but the good news is that of course he will become our Conductor Emeritus so we will still be seeing him – and hopefully working with him sometimes – in the future. Thanks for all you have done for and with us Neville, we will miss you!

On a more practical musical note, we are still busy preparing for our exciting BBC Prom on the 17th August with the BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra and Sir Mark Elder, performing Delius’ A Mass for Life, which we’re really looking forward to. Also during July we are focusing on vocal health, techniques and sight reading skills with our Associate Choral Director, Tori Longdon.

She will be directing two supportive and practical workshop sessions with us where we will be exploring tools to improve, rest and consolidate healthy vocal habits as well as how to improve and feel more confident about our sight singing. Tori is a bit of an expert on this so we’re lucky to be able to add these helpful experiences to our agenda. Knowing our voices and keeping them in top form is vital to ensure not only our general voice health and wellbeing are being taken care of, but also to make sure that we give the best of our voices when it comes to rehearsing and performing.

If you’d like to be part of a friendly, world class choir then why not come along to one of our discovery evenings and/or audition for us? You can find out more here – we’d love to meet you!