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Opinion
marcela topor - 3 January 2016 2.00 h

Bringing people together

- marcela topor
The idea be­hind the Barcelona Eng­lish Choir is that every­one is able to sing. How come?
I've seen a lot of peo­ple over the years and it is all about giv­ing it a go and see­ing what hap­pens. It's re­ally about los­ing some of your in­hi­bi­tions and going for it. I think there's op­por­tu­ni­ties for every­one to sing if the en­vi­ron­ment is right and if they feel sup­ported.
And it's all in Eng­lish.
In­deed, we have a lot of peo­ple com­ing who want to prac­tise their Eng­lish and sing at the same time, and that's the idea.
You came to Barcelona a few years ago but you are from the north of Eng­land. What brought you here and what made you stay?
I was work­ing in the UK in the Sage Gatesheads in the north of Eng­land for a num­ber of years, where I met my wife. We wanted a bit of a chal­lenge and in 2011 we de­cided to go for it re­ally and de­cided to move over here. But be­fore that point, I was work­ing in many dif­fer­ent areas across the com­mu­nity as a mu­si­cian.
You stud­ied music at Cam­bridge.
Yes, and after that I be­came in­volved with the Sage Gatesheads, which is an amaz­ing con­cert hall fo­cused on ed­u­ca­tion pro­grammes, so I did a com­mu­nity music pro­gramme train­ing there. I was work­ing with very young chil­dren, with peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, with older peo­ple, home­less peo­ple, peo­ple in pris­ons, doing music pro­jects.
Music as a so­cial tool, how does that work?
For me music is a so­cial glue re­ally; it's a great way to con­nect peo­ple, as it's very rare that you find some­one who doesn't enjoy music. The great thing about music pro­jects is that they offer every­one the op­por­tu­nity to en­gage. In my work in the UK it was re­ally a way to help peo­ple to open up, es­pe­cially when deal­ing with peo­ple with all sorts of dif­fi­cul­ties. Music is a great way of bring­ing peo­ple to­gether and it is a re­ally unit­ing thing. You can start from a very small place and you can see peo­ple's self con­fi­dence de­velop, peo­ple who have never had any ex­pe­ri­ence of singing or play­ing an in­stru­ment. For me, the so­cial side of it is the rea­son num­ber one I do it; it's amaz­ing see­ing the joy you get from see­ing peo­ple singing.
There are many stud­ies about the ben­e­fits of singing
Yes, there has been a lot of re­search on that sub­ject. You can see peo­ple be­com­ing more re­laxed, phys­i­cally using their bod­ies more, and it re­ally deals with phys­i­cal and men­tal health.
Did you have the idea of cre­at­ing a choir when you moved to Barcelona?
Not re­ally, at the be­gin­ning it was like a mini-sab­bat­i­cal or hon­ey­moon. We spent a few months just sort­ing things out and while my wife went straight into teach­ing, I spent some time ex­plor­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties.
Any dif­fer­ent cul­tural ex­pe­ri­ences?
It's won­der­ful to see dif­fer­ent gen­er­a­tions spend­ing time to­gether. Part of it tends to do with the weather and part of it with cul­ture. I love the small shops of our neigh­bour­hood in Sants. In my vil­lage it's the same fam­ily feel­ing, but it's def­i­nitely dying out, that type of trade.
How did Barcelona Eng­lish Choir start? You've now reached 170 mem­bers.
In Eng­land I worked with com­mu­nity choirs, and in Cat­alo­nia there was an amaz­ing choral tra­di­tion. I re­alised there is a huge de­mand for Eng­lish lan­guage ser­vices, and it struck me that this could be some­thing I could com­bine.
Where are the mem­bers of the choir from?
From the UK, other Eng­lish speak­ing coun­tries and from all over the world, but the ma­jor­ity are Cata­lans.
How can one be­come a mem­ber? There is no au­di­tion.
By get­ting in touch via our web­site or face­book page (www.​bar​celo​naen​glis​hcho​ir.​com). You just come along, try a ses­sion and see what you think. There are three terms per year, three months each, and you com­mit to one term at a time.
What about the fees?
It's about five euros each week. A two-hour ses­sion, a lot of singing, quite ac­ces­si­ble. Even for those with fi­nan­cial prob­lems it's not a prob­lem. It's very open in that way. There are three groups, in St Pere, St Ger­vasi and El Born and we all come to­gether for big events.
What are the main con­cepts be­hind the choir?
There are three main ideas: every­one can sing, come to enjoy the ex­pe­ri­ence of singing; the sense of build­ing a com­mu­nity and so­cial­is­ing in a sup­port­ive and wel­com­ing at­mos­phere and, prac­tis­ing Eng­lish at the same time.
Any pro­jects for the near fu­ture?
We can grow more; it would be lovely to have our own space. In 2017 it will be our fifth year and I'd like to do a big char­ity-based pro­ject and get to­gether 500 singers for that spe­cial oc­ca­sion.
Ed Aldcraft Each Wednesday at 6.30 pm, El Punt Avui TV airs the series of interviews, Catalan Connections. Marcela Topor talked to Ed Aldcraft, the director of the Barcelona English Choir.
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Marcela Topor
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