Oxford Sea Green Singers in Leeds Music Festival


Last weekend saw the celebration of the 22nd annual Street Music Festival, which this year took place in Leeds.
Oxford was represented by the Sea Green Singers, known to some of you as the ‘musical wing’ of the Oxford Levellers Association which organizes Levellers Day in Burford every May.
There was a hectic programme of activities running from Friday evening till around 2.00pm on Sunday, including concerts, workshops and busking. The main performances were on Saturday. The Sea Green Singers’ lively performance on the Briggate stage in Leeds city centre went down well with the other singers as well as local residents, even though we were one of the least experienced groups there, having been formed only about 2 years ago. The songs we chose included Gerard Winstanley’s ‘Diggers Song’ (dating from the 17th century) as well as the South African song ‘Shosholosa’. Afterwards all the groups went busking around the city centre, in about a dozen designated venues.
About 28 choirs took part, many of them from the north of England, including Bradford Voices, Leeds People’s Choir and Cor Cochion from Cardiff.
It was a wonderful weekend, an absolute feast of music and a perfect opportunity to meet old friends, make new ones and start plotting all sorts of exciting future projects and adventures. Our Leeds hosts did an excellent job of organizing the whole thing, which went like clockwork, and they managed to stay calm and smiling throughout.