Culture House presents Sunderland Sings: Songs of Friendship

Sunderland Music Hub is excited to be returning to Sunderland Empire on the 11th June for our annual Sunderland Sings event!

The event will see musicians from Sunderland Music Hub form the Big Sunderland Sings Band to perform a range of celebratory songs, as children and young people from your school become the star vocalists in our audience of singing schools.

The event aims to encourage children’s singing and musical development, with a pack of digital resources made available to schools including backing tracks and sheet music so teachers can support the musical learning of their students. Alongside this there will be a digital Makaton resource to enable children who use Makaton signs to aid their communication to access the event, and to promote signing for all students across the city irrespective of whether they use signs in their day-to-day communication.

We have two performances taking place this year:

The morning performance (10:30am start) will be slightly shorter in length. It will last one hour with no interval, seating will only be available in the stalls and the auditorium will be slightly lighter and less busy. Volume will be slightly lower for this performance. This performance may be appropriate for children and young people who would find a busy, chaotic and dark auditorium to be overwhelming.

The afternoon performance (1:15pm start) will be slightly longer in length. It will last approximately 75 minutes and include a short interval. The auditorium will be darker and busier and there will be children seated across three levels of the theatre. We envisage this performance to have a louder volume.

 What resources will be available for us?

As in previous years, schools will receive a digital resource pack including song lyrics and backing tracks for you to practise with. All songs can also be found on Charanga under the Music Hub tab, where there is the option to play the music with either the lyrics or sheet music, depending on how you prefer to practise.

We will be joined again this year by our friend and Makaton tutor Peter Rooney, who will be on stage to sign us through all songs in the event. Peter has also created videos for each song and which will soon be available on our YouTube page, so that you can practise your Makaton signing before the event should you wish to.

Will we receive any support with singing before the event?

When signing up, each school had the option to request a singing workshop, which will take place in the lead up to the event so that your students have the opportunity to go through some of the repertoire with our vocal leaders. These workshops will take place in your school lasting 1 hour and our vocal leaders will be in touch with your school’s workshop date.

To get the most out of your workshop, we recommend picking one or two songs to focus on that you are either least confident with have practised least. While our vocal leaders will do their best to visit everyone, workshops are availability dependant and will be offered to schools in order of sign up.

What if we still aren’t fully confident with every song?

We suggest starting with learning the choruses for each song first, this means if you do not manage to learn all the songs in full, your young people will still be able to join in with each song. At the event, our vocal leaders will also talk us through and practise each non-English language song first to familiarise us with the lyrics before we sing these together in full.

Lyrics for each song will also be projected onto our big screen for everyone to follow. While we won’t be providing printed lyric sheets on the day, your school is welcome to bring some with you if you feel these are needed.

When should we arrive for our performance?

Doors for the morning performance will open at 9:30am, with the afternoon’s opening at 12:30pm. Please arrive no later than 15 minutes before your performance starts, so that we can ensure everyone is seated and comfortable in time. Buses can drop off either in front of the Sunderland Empire on High Street West, or to the rear on Eden Street West.

Will ice cream be available?

Great question, and yes each school will have the option to pre-order ice cream for the event! The order form for these will be emailed out in advance, but if you think you have missed this please get in touch to let us know.

We will be hosting a Q&A session via Teams on Wednesday 21st May at 4pm, so that you can ask any questions about logistics or anything else Sunderland Sings related that you need to know. The meeting link for this will be shared via email in due course.

Please be aware that sign up for this year’s event is now closed!

Should you have any questions, please contact: James.Hayes@sunderland.gov.uk