Love Singing aims to support and promote creative, healthy singing communities across Scotland by supporting their leaders. The project is led by a steering group from across the community singing sector, produced by Love Music and supported by Creative Scotland.
Steering group
Ali Burns: Natural Voice Network specialist
Katy Lavinia Cooper: Head of Marketing and Trainer at Sing For Pleasure
Stephen Deazley: Artistic Director Love Music
Mary Ann Kennedy: Gaelic singer, composer and broadcaster
Andrew McTaggart: Director of Ayr Choral Union
Alison Reeves: Making Music Deputy CEO and Manager, Scotland
Penny Stone: Specialist in Singing for Health and wellbeing
Project updates
** Update April 2025: Sign up for our May planning events and let us know what your priorities are by filling in the survey
** Update Feb 2025: Love Music has been offered Creative Scotland multi-year funding for the continuation of the larger-scale sector-led training and resources project, as outlined in the Sector Support Plan. You can join the mailing list here if you’d like to help shape future plans, get involved, and be informed about project progress.
Please feel free to use the songbook and warm ups library with your choirs.
Send us your events and training opportunities for choir and singing leaders, along with any resources you’d like to share with other leaders, for the events page. Just email us with a very short description and a link where people can find out more.
How Love Singing has developed so far
2021 song commissions
In 2021, we commissioned five songwriters to write new songs in collaboration with five community choirs. Written during the pandemic, the free choir songs were created to be accessible for online teaching and learning, and are accompanied by professionally recorded audio and video resources to support both choir leaders and choir members. Each of the five choirs involved in the project has recorded their own version of the songs which gives a good feel for how they might be interpreted, performed and enjoyed by other choirs.
The feedback received in the choirs application stage and during this project about how isolated and separate from each other community choir and song leaders felt was the catalyst for producing the Comfort Of Voices gathering.
2022 Comfort Of Voices weekend gathering
On Sat 24th and Sun 25th Sept 2022, we hosted Comfort Of Voices, a weekend gathering that took place in Glasgow and online for choir and song leaders at all levels of experience and working in any genre, living or working in Scotland for the benefit of Scottish communities.
Representatives from choirs across the country and national organisations contributed to discussions and delegates sang together, learned from each other and networked with their peers. We discussed suggestions and practical solutions to best ensure sector resilience, future sustainability and growth, and started to explore what could be done at a strategic level to enable this change.
Those conversations and the feedback collected around the weekend has led to the development of the sector support plan mentioned above.
Sign up to our mailing list to be kept up to date with how the project develops.