Location
Brighton and London mainly and all over the UK regularly!
Brighton and London mainly and all over the UK regularly!
choir wrangler, choral composer, theatre maker, polyrhythmic funkster, improv fiend!
I am a choral activist based in Brighton and Musical Director for several regular choirs including Hullabaloo Quire (the longest established Natural Voice choir in Brighton!) and Raise the Roof Community Choir in South London.
I also run UpRoar People’s Ceilidh, a bi-monthly collaborative community ‘festival in an afternoon’ and Bards and Ballads Choral Theatre courses.
More recently I have been writing and delivering for bespoke projects for organisations including Lewisham Borough of Culture and The National Trust.
My work harnesses professional and grassroots community elements in participatory and performance settings, nurturing collaboration between community and professional musicians. I trained at Goldsmiths in 1997 and founded Hullabaloo Community Quire in Brighton in 1998. I’ve been the Musical Director for Raise the Roof Choir, Herne Hill for 10 yrs.
During my career I’ve established a reputation in the alternative choral world as a composer of syncopated, polyphonic, engaging and accessible songs of solidarity, reflection and celebration for mixed ability singers. Hullabaloo specialises in collaborative work with high-calibre pro musicians in folk and jazz, including Rory McCleod & Liane Carroll.
Past work and commissions:
As Commissioned Composer:
Cycle of Song; The Listening Lions with Michael Rosen: Creating My Cambridge, HistoryWorks
The Big Song: Brighton Festival, Brainfruit
The Four Directions: Brighton Sacred World Music Fest
As Choral Director:
Depart by Circa: Brighton Festival
Sun & Sea: The Albany
The Arms of Sleep -The Voice Project: Rehearsal Director, Brighton Festival
Chalk Circle Collective tour: Composer and Company Director
Everyone can sing with Hullabaloo, including YOU! We are an inclusive and welcoming choir – you won’t be left on your own and you’ll soon be one the gang! No auditions or reading music, just show up on Monday evenings and add your voice to the joyful chorus.
Diverse! Creative! Exciting and fun to sing!
Hullabaloo has an amazingly eclectic repertoire which includes foot tapping, spine tingling arrangements of folk, jazz, pop and blues songs, which share a set lists with compositions by contemporary composers and a far reaching, authentically sourced bank of songs from the global majority, not to mention songs spanning a thousand years!
But what really sets us apart from other choirs is our collaborative projects. We have, over the last 24 years, gained a positive reputation as a collaborative choir. We’ve been lucky enough to work with musical legends, including Liane Carroll, Oysterband, Lorraine Bowen and The Moulettes
Kirsty Martin – our Musical Director – writes us amazing arrangements that weave us around the existing structure of our collaborators’ original songs and the effect is electrifying!
Then Hullabaloo is for YOU
🗓️ Mondays 7 – 9.15pm
📍 Stanford Junior School, BN1 5PR
🫖 Bring your own mug for tea
🏫 Read more about our venue and rehearsals
👛 Project fees explained here
We can’t wait for you to join us!
Monday evenings 7pm - 9.15pm
Raise the Roof is a fun and inclusive Natural Voice Community Choir, located at the Carnegie Library Hub in Herne Hill.
We sing foot-stomping, spine-tingling, genre-defying, endorphin-raising songs in glorious a cappella vocal harmony – songs of passion, reflection, celebration and community from all over the world and across time – from folk to funk and doo-wop to hip-hop!
Raise the Roof is a Natural Voice Choir and all are welcome. There are no auditions, we learn by ear and sing from the soles of our feet! We are led by choral composer Kirsty Martin.
We meet on Thursdays evenings during ‘term time’
Doors open from 6.45pm and we sing from 7.00pm, with Tea and biscuit break at 8.00pm! ☕️ Our second half is from 8.15 pm – 9.00 pm.
When you arrive there’ll be a friendly face at our reception desk and you’ll be invited to take a seat in the circle. Our activities take place both sitting and standing, sometimes moving around the space in a variety of creative ways! You can always sit down for anything, whenever you need to.
Here’s a run down of our dates for this term, with the tutor for each evening.
Hannah Aine: 24th April, 1st May, 8th May.
Laurel Neighbour: 15th May, 22nd May and 5th June
Kirsty Martin: 12th June, 19th June and 26th June.
Find out more and book your place by visiting https://www.raisetheroofchoir.org or email us at info@raisetheroofchoir.org
Thursday evenings in Term Time 7-9pm
