Singworks - 2007
In 2003 the Foundation launched Singworks in Worcestershire. The aim of this project was to initiate a range of activities that would stimulate and develop singing opportunities for young people in the county. Through the project singing in education, worship and other community contexts would be better connected so that an improved platform for the development of an integrated singing culture could be created, nurtured and sustained.
Under its inspirational Manager Cathy Dew, Singworks went on to become one of the country's best- regarded projects of its kind, and cited as such in Howard Goodall's seminal report which accompanied the launch of the government's national Singup programme in 2006. A series of projects such as Boys make noise in Bromsgrove, the countywide Worcester Young Voices supported by Youth Music, Playground Songs and Games, ChOral History, a revival of the Radio Ballads which brought to life lost traditions around Kidderminster and which received a major grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, Worcester Cathedral's Chorister Outreach programme, and an oustanding production of Britten's Noye's Fludde for the Three Choirs Festival are examples of successes which have touched many schools. Singworks is currently being reviewed following Cathy Dew's move to Germany.