Date: 2024-2025
Ep 24
The third and final episode of a mini series of audio stories I’ve been creating as part of a Develop Your Creative Practice (DYCP) grant from Arts Council England is about the health and wellbeing benefits of singing.
I spent time with 3 different community singing groups, capturing their singing sessions and interviewing participants about how it makes them feel and what benefits it brings to their lives.
Monday Music was set up by Grenville Hancox to promote the benefits of singing for general well-being. Its 65 or so members are mainly residents of Folkestone and its surrounding areas who meet once a week, during term time, to sing together. Grenville describes the sessions as a physical, mental and spiritual workout!
Canterbury Skylarks is the founding Sing to Beat Parkinson’s group and part of the Canterbury Cantata Trust which supports a network of singing groups for people with Parkinson’s and other neurological conditions. The programme’s origins are rooted in the work of the Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health (SDH centre) and since 2018, more than three hundred practitioners have participated in Sing to Beat Parkinson’s training programmes.
Singing Mamas is a grassroots movement of women committed to improving wellbeing through singing. It was set up by nurse Kate Valentine to help manage stress, find connection and joy. There are Singing Mamas groups all over the country supporting women through pregnancy and motherhood, and with symptoms of postnatal depression.
This story isn’t about new scientific evidence, it re-confirms and celebrates how singing creates community, a sense of belonging and identity along with supporting mental health, other neurological conditions and a range of physical health conditions.
If you’d like to commission an audio story about your work, organisation or group, please get in touch.
Links:
Monday Music
Sing to Beat Parkinson’s
Canterbury Cantata Trust
Singing Mamas
Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health
Socials:
@singing_mamas_org
@singtobeatparkinsons
@kate_valentine_singing_mamas
@creativehealthstories
