Well the answer here in Leeds seems to be, into Leeds Male Voice choir!
Its a common talking point that we hear from Male Voice choirs, its impossible to recruit younger men and men don't want to sing, but I don't think that's true and our work here in Leeds underlines that point.
True, it may be slightly more difficult to direct recruit into Male Voice choirs, they can be seen as stuffy, old fashioned past their sell by date, and therefore projecting an image that the younger singer doesn't feel connected to, but in recent years several new young male voice small ensembles have sprung up and had great success, so its clearly not that men don't want to sing rather they don't want to sing what many choirs are offering.
With innovative 'Find your voice' schemes introducing around 40 men a year into singing through a series of funded workshops, to changing music to encompass a wide variety of styles and from many countries, maybe giving that uniform a shakedown, going on tour overseas, matching the choirs look with equally slick publicity and really coming into the world around us and continually looking ahead to new ideas, ways of finding new audiences and ways of attracting and keeping members - Male Voice choirs can thrive,
We certainly have - over the last 10 years numbers have risen from 12 - 65, we continually have more men wanting to join than we have spaces for and we invest a lot of money in new music which brings us new audiences and the wheel of success keeps turning, we have toured Prague, Belgium and Budapest as well as in the UK and we have singers from all age groups who look after each other, made a recording and backed all this up with a beautiful continually evolving website.
Why am I telling you all this? - because I have talked to hundreds of choirs over the years and have three best selling books on the subjects covered above and I am happy to help you!
Workshops, buying the books, whatever ... I am pretty sure that I can give you the ideas and impetus that will help you turn around your choir's fortunes, ( and not just Male voice choirs), I'm from Yorkshire, I may be a little blunt at times, my medicine is sometimes hard to swallow ... but as many choirs will tell you, --- it works.
So either look at my books on the website shop page ( they are on offer at the moment) or email me and tell me your challenges and we will see if we can work them out!
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