Saturday Sings - Kirsty Martin & Rosie Sleightholme

Description

After a really successful 2024 Saturday Sings series, I’ve decided to do it all again, and I’ve got some fantastic guests lined up for 2025!

Saturday Sings is a singing workshop series where I invite a different choir composer each time and we share a day of teaching our own original harmony songs. Who knows, you could be the first group of singers to ever sing this material! Most songs are in 4 part harmony (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass).

All are welcome. We are Natural Voice Network leaders and all songs will taught by ear so there is no need to read music.

🎶 WHERE? Victoria Park Baptist Church, Sylvia Ave, Bristol BS3 5DA*

🎶 WHAT TIME? 1030-430pm (Doors 10am, arrive by 1015am).

🎶 PRICE? £40 standard rate, plus booking fee (Low Income/Higher Earner/Super Supporter options available)**

*Drivers - This venue isn't in the Bristol Clean Air Zone, but do check your route if you're trying to avoid it. You can check if your car is exempt here.

There is free on street parking on all the surrounding streets.

**Please note, unlike last year, the workshops won’t be catered (it's logistically quite challenging, sorry!), but we'll still have teas and coffees in the breaks. Lunch break will be  an hour, and you can bring your own packed lunch to eat at the church or in Victoria Park across the road. There is a bakery across the road, and there are other food options within 10/15 mins walk of the church.

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25th January 2025 - Kirsty Martin & Rosie Sleightholme

We are kicking off Saturday Sings 2025 with a brilliant composer guest - Kirsty Martin. Kirsty is a brilliant writer and leader with 30 years' experience, and I can't wait to hear what songs she brings!

About Kirsty:

Kirsty Martin is a choral composer, choir director and theatre designer based in Brighton and working internationally.

As well as her regular community choirs in Brighton (Hullabaloo Quire and Hubbub Song Circle) and London (Raise the Roof), Kirsty works as a freelance musical director, choral theatre designer / dramaturg.

Her workshop style is relaxed and affirming, humorous and engaging; she uses a versatile creative tool kit built from 30 years’ experience to create joyful and inspirational harmony singing experiences that are accessible for singers of all passions, persuasions and penchants!

Kirsty is both a choral composer and arranger; her arrangements of soul, jazz, pop and folk songs are sung by community choirs and singing groups all over the world, and her polyrhythmic, harmonically rich and deeply funky style is embedded in her original, characterful compositions. She draws on an eclectic mix of poems, stories, anecdotes and lyrics for her original music for choirs, as her last song book - The Revolution will be Harmonised - attests. Her choral compositions are satisfyingly full yet immediately accessible, and she has a keen understanding of how to create a dynamic singing experience for everyone - the bass will never be ’stuck on the dm dms’ on her watch!

She is an avid collaborator, and has carved a choral niche in the alt-folk world, working with artists including Oysterband, Grace Petrie, O’Hooley and Tidow, The Unthanks, Lucy Ward, The Moulettes and many more.

Kirsty writes and directs vocal theatre; interweaving song, story and ensemble movement, for community singers and actors. She has been the Artistic Director for Bards and Ballads Choral Theatre since 2018. Recent Choral Directorship projects includes collaborations with and commissions from The National Trust, Brighton Festival and Brighton Fringe, Wild Works Theatre, Circa Theatre, The Voice Project, Third Space Theatre, Brighton People’s Theatre, Act Up Speak Out!, London Boroughs of Lewisham and Barking and Dagenham, and The Albany, London.

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Payment options:

I want Saturday Sings to be accessible whilst also paying myself and my composer guest a fair wage (fees go towards our prep time, composing time, travel, as well as the workshop itself). For this reason I've offered 4 payment options:

If you can afford to pay a bit more, your extra payment is much appreciated and helps to offset Low Income payments.

Please have a read of the Fees table on my People of Note website to decide which of the categories you best fit, and you can decide which rate to pay, no questions asked. I've added the Super Supporter rate this year as some people have said to me that they would like to pay more, which is very kind indeed, thank you.

If you will still struggle to pay the Low Income option, please contact me directly and we will work something out. I don't want anyone to be excluded because they are limited by finances. We have the Higher Earner and Super Supporter rates to help with this.

Please note that the ticketing platform I use now adds a 5% fee on to your booking.

Please see the event FAQs for what else your fee includes.
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Saturday Sings 2025 Series:

25th Jan - Kirsty Martin & me

29th Mar - Lea Morris & me

17th May - Ryan O’Riordan & me

13th Sept - Emily Roblyn & me

8th Nov - Dom Stichbury & me