A Harrow choir that has been running for more than 80 years fears it may close without new members.
"This year will be make or break for the choir” Harrow Apollo Male Choir music director David Heasman said.
The four-part harmony choir has raised thousands of pounds for charities since 1941 and has performed at venues including the Royal Albert Hall, Cologne Cathedral and Arsenal's Highbury football stadium.
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But the choir currently only has three top tenors and needs to recruit more to be able to perform.
“We lost over a dozen of our members after the lockdown,” concert manager Christopher Drew told the Harrow Times.
“They haven’t all died but some of them don’t go out anymore, two or three of them died for other reasons and one died of Covid.”
“We can’t be a four-part harmony without top tenors, we would have to go down to three-part harmony and it would seriously limit the range of our repertoire,” Drew said.
The choir had up to 60 members in its heyday, today only 30 remain, leaving little room for absentees on concert days.
With songs from West End shows such as Les Miserables and pop classics like the Mamas & the Papas’ California Dreamin' or John Lennon’s Imagine, the choir aims to “provide something for everyone”.
The group raised around £5,000 last year for charities including St Luke’s Hospice, for which they have sung every year for ten years.
Drew said: “People who joined the choir have told us they joined the choir not just for the joy of singing but because of the satisfaction they get to perform to raise money for charity.”
The singers have also come together to buy their youngest member Stephen Anderson a bodycam to help him record evidence of his guide dog being refused on board private hire vehicles.
The choir does not hold formal auditions so prospective members are encouraged to participate to a few rehearsals before they make the decision to join.
A taster evening is organised on Tuesday, January 17 at 8 pm at St Alban’s Church Hall on the Ridgeway, where singers of all levels are invited to take part.
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