Background

We are a mixed, non-auditioned choir from Burnley who meet weekly to sing in 4 part harmony – we don't do solos; you just need to want to sing with other people!

Choir member David Hedley says: "It's great so many new voices have joined us this past year. I've been singing with this choir for about 10 years now and have found it a really friendly, welcoming group and you don't need to be able to read music to sing with us. All the songs are taught by ear!"

The choir, formed in 1998, has its roots in the Clarion tradition of singing as a part of radical campaigning – it is one of only 4 in the UK with the 'Clarion' title. (See Working Class Movement Library website)

"The Clarion Vocal Unions and Socialist Choirs and Bands started ... around .. the same time as the Clarion Cycling Clubs. No decent-sized Socialist Public Meeting was complete without .. music. It was in South Lancashire that the Vocal Unions, like the Cycling Clubs, took deepest root." (From 'Fellowship is Life' by Denis Pye, Clarion Publishing, 1995)

We're a community choir, enabling people to sing together for the fun of it and it's good for you.  But we also support local groups, whose values we share.

For example, we recently led an exciting singing project for the Pendle Hill Landscape Partnership about Ethel Carnie Holdsworth and other visionaries who were drawn to the area of Pendle over the centuries.

We sing at the annual "Independence from America" demonstration at Menwith Hill.

We take part in the Burnley May Day parade.

The Clarion House at Newchurch-in-Pendle is probably the choir's favourite place to sing.

And one of the high points of the year is participating in the national Street Choirs Festival.

Further information about the choir is here