Last summer I was looking ahead to 2019 and our 10th birthday year. I had a timeline of things I wanted to achieve this year and lots of ways that I wanted to celebrate the fact that Love Soul Choir turned 10. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined this year would have turned out quite the way it has…

In January we started learning our 2019 song list. We have some amazing songs to learn this year. I really tried to push the boundaries in terms of songs and vocal arrangements for 2019. We have such a variety of music and I couldn’t wait to get started.

Back in February, we were lucky enough to perform at Mayflower Theatre for Wessex Heartbeat. We were on the bill alongside Joe McElderry & Kerry Ellis as well as a number of other groups from the area. It was our first performance of 2019 and a really awesome show to be a part of.

In March, we celebrated our 10th birthday! Crazy times. What an amazing 10 years.

Moving on to May, we were part of One Sound: Space. One Sound is a yearly choir collaboration show that I put on with Jack White. The show featured performances from Love Soul Choir, Sing Now Choir, SingForce and this year Total Voice Contemporary Choir. This years show took place at O2 Guildhall Southampton and was a sell out show. There were 1000 audience members watching the show with over 550 singers involved. It was a very magical night and as always, I felt super proud of Love Soul Choir’s performance. It was solid and professional. Not only that, it looked and sounded epic!

In May we had our biggest performance to date. We were approached earlier in the year to perform with Take That in Southampton as part of their Odyssey tour. It was an opportunity I could just not turn down! The only problem was that only 30 singers could be involved. I came up with a plan to ensure the whole process was as fair as possible and this involved an internal audition process. I invited my friend Katie Holmes-Smith (she’s a backing vocalist to the stars – she’s been on tour with Adele, Kylie Minogue, JP Cooper, Leona Lewis & Olly Murs to name a few) to join us for the audition process and to help me make one of the hardest decisions of my career to date. It was never going to be easy but thankfully the whole choir were super understanding and were proud of the 30 who would be flying the flag for the whole choir. I then started the rehearsal process which was pretty intense ahead of the shows. 

What I didn’t think about what the emotional pressure that the 30 singers would experience on show day – the nerves, fear, excitement and overwhelm. It was a real roller-coaster of emotions. I was there to help keep everybody calm, serve soup & make cups of tea! Haha. I’m sure I did a little more than this but I thought I did quite a good job of serving soup!

The shows were insane and a memory that will live with me forever. I can’t wait for what might come next.

We then raised some serious money for charity in June. We performed at Conna’s (one of our lovely Bournemouth members) charity event for Macmillan Cancer Support. We helped raise over £600.

I had then arranged, with South Western Railways, a charity event where we’d perform at train stations all the way from Bournemouth to London Waterloo. We raised money for Mind, the mental health charity. We have raised over £1100 so far! It was an amazing day and a moment I won’t forget was our performance at Vauxhall train station. The crowds grew and vocally the choir sounded epic. I was so proud of the performance the choir were putting on despite the crazy heat! We picked the hottest day of the year to travel on the trains. Typical, eh?

So far this year has been crazy busy but also super exciting. In the coming months, we’re performing at a couple of weddings, at the New Forest Show, at Mudeford Arts Festival and have many more performances lined up too. We also have our Solo Performance Night where members of the choir can perform a solo/duo or small group number to the rest of the choir. We’ll also be working towards our Winter Show – our own theatre show which takes place every December. It’s our chance to showcase all of our material.

It’s been an amazing year so far and I’m just about to start deciding on and recording our song arrangements for 2020. I wonder what 2020 will bring.

I am so thankful to the whole of Love Soul Choir for their ongoing support. It’s the people that make the choir special and I can’t wait to see where the next 10 years take us.

Dan Cooper
(Choir Leader)

If you’d like to apply for an audition with Love Soul Choir, please visit the audition page on our website. Once you’ve sent your application to us, we’ll be in touch within a couple of days to schedule the time and place of your audition.