Location

Folks & Bairns is a parent and baby choir based in South Bristol.

Description

Folks & Bairns is a parent and baby choir based at St Michael & All Angels church, Windmill Hill, South Bristol. The choir enables grown-ups to sing together in a relaxed and baby-friendly environment. It is run by Natural Voice Leader, musician and singer Rosie Sleightholme. Every voice is welcomed, no singing experience is necessary and all songs are taught by ear.

• Pay termly
• First session is a free taster
• Book here: folksandbairns@gmail.com
• New members are welcome at any point during the term!
• Pregnant women welcome 🙂

AUTUMN/WINTER TERM DATES:

• 18th Sept-11th Dec (no choir 22nd Oct)
• Performance at Treefest – Fri 8th Dec, 5pm at St Mary Redcliffe Church
• Christmas Concert – 2pm, Sat 16th Dec, St Michael & All Angels Church, Windmill Hill
• PRICE: Pay termly (no of weeks in term X the following weekly rates):
  • Low Income: £6.50/week
  • Standard: £8/week
  • Higher earner: £9 or more a week (you choose price)
  • If you join part way through the term, after your free taster you pay for the rest of term pro rata.

What people have said about us:

• Classic FM wrote a lovely piece about us , which has videos and explains Rosie’s ethos as a choir leader.
• BBC Points West featured us on their programme, talking about how singing speeds up recovery from postnatal depression.
• BBC News also featured us on their website.
• BBC Radio Bristol interviewed Rosie about singing during pregnancy and early parenthood.

Session times

Mondays, 11.30am - 12.30pm

“Folks and Bairns is my favourite part of the week. There’s something so wonderful about coming together to sing – food for the soul! I always leave feeling brighter after a good old sing song with some lovely parents and their babies. My baby is getting very used to being sung to sleep by a choir
I can’t recommend this highly enough. If you do one thing on parental leave… DO THIS!”  Lowri Ann

“I just wanted to say thanks so much for all your hard work. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Ev was just 6 weeks old and I felt so anxious, exhausted and overwhelmed with the little bundle of joy (!). Singing became a sort of therapy for me. At just the right level – I could learn the beautiful songs and then often spent the rest of the week singing them to Everett – there were times when both Ali and he fell asleep to me humming the songs, and they would keep me company on the long nights I was spending awake. You made it fun yet helped us optimise our sound, and I’m so impressed with how good we sound, even when we are all half distracted by squalling bairns during a rehearsal. Thank you for providing a wonderful way to start the Mondays of my maternity leave. I hope to come along to People of Note in future! “ Miranda Cole

“Rosie runs a wonderful choir, it is so welcoming and friendly. It’s lovely to sing something other than nursery rhymes but to still be in a really baby friendly environment. My daughter loves seeing all the other babies each week and really benefits from seeing the older babies. She sat for the first few times at choir copying the older children.” Beth Freeman-Coad

“As a mum to be the Womb Sisters choir really helped me in the last weeks of pregnancy to stay active and meet other likeminded mums. It made the last weeks’ wait a lot less stressful and it was lovely to have a little bit of sharing time at the beginning of each class. It really felt like I was not alone in this mad time of changes and excitement. The songs were fun to perform, with material I’d never heard before (which was exactly what I was after), there was humming and dancing and clapping and it all felt so good!

I think the songs also helped me bond with my baby; I am convinced he recognised the tunes once he was born. Some became very useful to calm him down when he was tiny – I would play the online choir recordings to keep him happy and entertained on a long car trip. He still loves the songs we sang while he was in the womb! The best of it all is that we are still singing with each other weekly at Folks & Bairns and it is a lovely network of friendly mums and dads. It’s so good to learn and perform new songs, and see the babies develop bonds, grow together and interact as the terms progress. It’s been very helpful and a mental break from worrying or stressing over things. I don’t think anyone can sing and be in a bad mood at the same time. I’d recommend the choirs to every mum-to-be and parent! Hands down five stars!” Ariadna Perrott

“The Womb Sisters choir was a really lovely thing to do. I loved singing to my baby in the womb, and it was so special doing this with others. Being pregnant together and sharing the woes and joys helped us create lasting bonds which were enhanced by coming together and singing in harmony. Listening to each other and creating something together created a warmth which was so important to me in the last weeks of my pregnancy.

After my baby was born I was grateful to have a store of interesting songs to sing her, and to learn new songs, continue singing with the Womb Sisters ladies, and meet other new parents in Folks & Bairns. The relationships we have developed have brought me joy and relief through the inevitable darknesses and bewilderments of new motherhood.

“Rosie is a joy to be taught by, she has inspired me with confidence to sing out no matter how much I judge the sound I make, and the sessions are gentle and fun. I thoroughly recommend!”  Rebecca Burton