The Mind & Soul choir was founded in 2006 through an initial grant from the Maudsley Charity to promote mental wellbeing through singing. The choir workshops are currently held on the Maudsley Hospital Site. Our doors are open to anyone, who to lives around SE5 and wants to get involved. A warm welcome awaits you all.
Membership is free and there is no requirement to audition or read music. Just turn up and sing your heart out!
Workshops are expertly led by our Musical Director, Nicola Wydenbach who specialises in singing for health and wellbeing and has been with Mind & Soul September 2018. There’s no specific genre of music – the repertoire covers a wide spectrum from funk through pop and Motown to folk, classical, world music, swing and everything in between. It’s all about feeling the groove and having fun!
As well as weekly workshops, we also perform. We’ve enjoyed performing at a variety of events, including Anxiety Fanfare at the Wigmore Hall; Ignite Festival at the Royal Opera House, Friday Late at the V&A, several Chorus Festivals at the South Bank, a Concert for Winter at the Globe, and locally at Herne Hill Festival, and Harvest Day in Ruskin Park. Annually we sing midwinter on the psychiatric inpatients units.
Keep an eye on News and Events to find out what’s coming soon!
The Mind and Soul Choir is now a not-for-profit unincorporated association raising funds through voluntary contribution, donations and short term charitable funding.
With funding from the Big Lottery, we’ve taken our singing workshops to a medium secure psychiatric unit and joined with the Micro Rainbow International Choir, supporting LGBTI asylum seekers and refugees through a project called ‘Out Of The Box Choir’.
Other links to the Mind and Soul Choir performances include:
‘Meet my choir’ feature that was on BBC Radio 3’s long running The Choir on the BBC website. We were the first choir featured.
The Choir Doctor feature: