Join a scratch choir for this year's Choirfest in Bognor Regis

Prospective singers can get in touch now.

Choirfest will run over the weekend of March 16 and 17, a joint collaboration between West Sussex-based Arun Arts and Bersted Arts.

The festival is a non-competitive event that welcomes a diverse range of community choirs from Hampshire across to East Sussex. The aim is to bring together some of the region’s talented but otherwise unknown community choirs and showcase their talents to the community without the pressure of competing against each other.

New for this year is the ChoirFest scratch choir, perfect for anyone who doesn’t belong to a choir but would like to try it out.

Taking place on the Saturday of the festival, members of the public are invited to form their very own choir, from scratch. Under the expert direction of a professional musical director, a group of newbies will come together to learn and rehearse a number of songs during the day before taking to the stage with the other community choirs to perform in front of an audience.

Will said: “This will be a challenging but really fun experience for anyone who has always wanted to sing in a choir but perhaps hasn’t found the confidence or the time needed to commit to regular practice.

“For some people, the thought of joining an already established group of singers as someone new and who doesn’t know anyone can also be quite daunting.

“The beauty of the scratch choir is that everyone is in the same boat and won’t know each other, and most will have little to no experience of singing in a choir. But they’ll receive all the coaching and encouragement they need and will be fully prepared for their performance in the evening.”

More information about the scratch choir challenge, and how to register to take part, can be found at www.berstedarts.com/choirfest, along with information about the event itself.

Tickets for either the Saturday or Sunday performances of ChoirFest are now available to the public from just £8.50 and can be purchased from the Regis Centre box office by calling 01243 861010 or by visiting www.regiscentre.co.uk.

Some of the choirs confirmed to take part include The Igloo Choir from Wickham in Hampshire, Voices Unlimited from Hove, Singers Rechoired from Worthing, Chi Choir from Chichester and Inspirations Choir from Littlehampton.

After an afternoon of rehearsing and networking, each of the choirs takes to the stage to perform in front of a packed audience in the Alexandra Theatre before all coming together on stage in a showstopping finale.

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