Winkleigh Singers prepare to celebrate 40th anniversary

Chamber choir, the Winkleigh Singers, is raising funds to commission a new choral piece to mark 40 years of bringing live music to north and mid-Devon

2024 marks the 40th anniversary of the formation of the Winkleigh Singers when Roland Smith first put up a card in the village post office of Winkleigh suggesting the formation of a choir to sing madrigals and other works for fun.

Since then, the choir has gone from strength to strength under Roland’s leadership and musical direction.

To celebrate this significant occasion, the choir hopes to commission a new work to be first performed at one of their events during 2024.

They have chosen the composer Alison Willis who has put forward an exciting proposal to set some of the Landkey Carols to new music.

The Carols are traditional Christmas songs from the North Devon village of Landkey, near Barnstaple and so present a unique connection to the area in which the choir performs.

Roland Smith, Musical Director of the Winkleigh Singers said: “In her initial expression of interest, Alison proposed a Christmas piece of between eight and ten minutes duration based on the Landkey Carols. We hope that working with Alison, we can create a piece with several contrasting sections which, whilst commissioned and premiered by the Winkleigh Singers as part of the 40th Anniversary could have a lasting legacy of performances by many other choirs in the future.”

Roland went on to explain that the Landkey Carols are traditional Christmas songs from the North Devon village of Landkey, near Barnstaple and so present a unique connection to the area in which the choir performs.

Tim Allen, Chair of Trustees of the Winkleigh Singers, said that the choir was now looking for grants and donations from the public to raise funds to commission the new piece. He said: “The choir was shortlisted for the Making Music Adopt a Creator project and we hoped that this would provide the resources for the anniversary piece but unfortunately we did not make the final group selected for the award.

“We have decided therefore to try to raise sufficient funds to commission a substantial piece of new music from Alison. We already have a pledge of £5,000 from a supporter of the choir but are now looking for matching funding with the aim of reaching at least £10,000. We hope that anyone interested in live choral music will be able to donate to our GoFundMe page at https://gofund.me/cb709446.”