SOME VOICES
musical DIRECTOR
SEPTEMBER 2019 - PRESENT
SOME VOICES, the coolest non-audition pop choir in London, started in 2010 with just seven choir members meeting up to sing and socialise. Now with over 800 members meeting in 12 rehearsal venues across London, Some Voices has grown and developed a signature style of performing original arrangements of popular songs that range from Bowie to Bjork, from Stevie Wonder to Stevie Nicks, from Folk to Hip Hop, and everything in between - all with a Some Voices twist.
Luke is beyond thrilled to be joining the Some Voices family to lead two choirs for the organisation. A Monday choir in Whitechapel and a Tuesday choir in Islington. Described as “choir without the boring bits” Some Voices is a non-audition choir for anyone to join so they can belt out a tune with abandon, forget their daily woes and meet life long-friends.
Check out Some Voices at:
theatre and music workshops at the museum of london
PROJECT LEADER
SEPTEMBER 2019 - PRESENT
Since September 2019, Luke has been a resident artist at the Museum of London, Docklands. He is currently working on two projects incorporating theatre and music to not only provide a most interactive and sensory experience to participants, but also to reach out to communities who have never been to a venue such as this.
MUSEM MUSIC MAKERS: is an EY weekly project bringing together families with young children, a local children's centre and the Museum of London. With sessions led and facilitated by Luke, the families come to experience immersive theatre within the halls of the museum and live music.
MEMORIES OF LONDON: is a regular project bringing together families with young children and elderly people living with dementia. Through music, storytelling, puppetry and theatre, all participants come together in one session. With Luke's facilitation, the participants come together in one of the museum's exhibits. They interact together and work to re-create a story inspired by the Museum's tales and history.
find your voice
musical facilitator
march 2019 - July 2019
Find Your Voice was started by Emma Baines in 2012. It is the only arts and cultural, Education Skills Funding, participation programme within the UK that has a singing focus, specifically working within adult social care centres. It is a social enterprise that delivers positive community and curriculum outcomes, using singing as a means to expand the world of our often disassociated and vulnerable participants. In 2018, Find Your Voice carried out over 2,020 interventions in 198 programmes nationwide, with numbers projected to double in 2019.
Luke's work with Find Your Voice began in March 2019, launching programmes engaging differently abled participants and participants struggling with mental health. One of them being a 10-week project designed for communities to help enable adult learners to improve fitness, health and wellbeing in a fun and safe environment. Plus another programme working with adult communities to grow and develop a choir. For two hours a week, the group meet to learn how to sing as part of a group to strengthen a sense of community amongst the participants. Through learning a new skill, the group are encouraged to creatively engage with community members of ages and abilities through high-energy singing.
PROJECT WITH THE GRENFELL TOWER CHILDREN January
musical director / director
2018-present
Working alongside Chickenshed, Luke's work has brought him to communities in urgent need of joy and happiness. On 14 June 2017, a fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London causing 72 deaths. As an aftermath to this tragedy, together with on-going projects in the area, I shifted my attention to the community affected by the fire.
Working with Chickenshed, Luke started a theatre program of weekly sessions at a school close to the tower, called Oxford Gardens Primary School. 70% of its students were directly impacted by the tragedy. The program was designed to alleviate some of the sorrow that these children faced.
As both a musical director, and later an artistic director for this project, Luke has pushed these children to start shifting their gaze from grief to hope.
community choirs
musical director
april 2017 - present
One highlight of Luke's community work is that of running choirs. Currently, he heads three community choirs in Potters Bar, UK.
Sing For Your Life: The choir’s participants are mostly retired partipcants who brighten their Tuesday mornings with a sing-along. Members are not auditioned, not asked to commit to any number of sessions, but rather encouraged to join in whatever capacity they feel comfortable in.
All through the year, the choir is led with the strong will to remind these people about the joy of singing and also to create a strong communal bond between the participants through music. What started out as a group of 12 has now developed to a group of over 50 participants.
A number of participants do suffer from dementia, Alzheimer's or mobility issues - making the community choir a celebration of what brings us together rather than the struggles faced getting there. The oldest member in the group is 94 years old.
Two other community choirs run by Luke are the Potters Bar Community Choir and Musical Sundays.
"Both choirs leave the sessions feeling uplifted and engaged with both the music and their new found choir community.
Luke is a pleasure to work with; inspiring but also reliable and hardworking."
Ginny Williams, Theatre Manager
Background Photo Courtesy of Chickenshed Theatre Company
