Singing from the Heart – Gospel Choir The Hague
Laugh, cry, play and touch the world through music
We are partner in the Ooievaarspas program: a card that gives you reduction on all kinds of activities in (mainly) The Hague. The card is for those who have a limited income. If you have an Ooievaarspas and you are older than 18 you are entitled to 50% reduction on your monthly subscription fee. If you have an Ooievaarspas and you are between 12 and 18 years old Ooievaarspas will pay your full contribution fee. Check https://www.ooievaarspas.nl/ for more information.
We rehearse in community center ‘De Kronkel’ every week with our gospel choir. Recently the community center was not accessible due to a major power failure following road works. Since I could not reach anyone who could give us access to the building I started thinking of alternative locations.
Two of our loyal supporters, an elderly couple that owns a big house in the city center, had once said: ‘You can come and sing at our place.’ I called the lady in question and she let us know we could come immediately. After a cup of tea and coffee we had our rehearsal. The couple enjoyed our singing for free and we enjoyed a free rehearsal location. Flip-thinking in action!
Do you have a spacious living room and a piano? And would you be interested in having a choir sing at your place? Please contact us for more information!
The above story – in Dutch – has been published on the Omdenken website.
Part of our singing together is in the form of circle songs: a creative and spontaneous way of creating and singing songs together as a group.
One person acts as a leader – that can be the choir conductor but also one of the singers. The leader decides how to start building a song. That can be by singing a couple of notes in a particular rhythm to each vocal group (altos, sopranos, tenors, basses). And then there is all kinds of ways to start improvising on top of these melodies, solo or in groups.
We created one circle song especially for a concert in the Peace Palace based on a Zulu song. We used the Zulu lyrics, wrote an English version, created different melodies and sang both in English and in Zulu.
We are inspired by (among others) Bobby McFerrin. Listen to one of his circle songs.