Manchester Sings 2023
Withington Girls' School worked with six Maintained Partner Primary Schools on a large-scale musical event held at Manchester Cathedral in November 2023. All schools involved recognise the importance of community and share the same vision and ethos of helping those less fortunate than themselves. The event saw over 200 children joining together to celebrate the positivity of Community through song and poetry.
This Partnership is not a temporary venture as the first Manchester Sings was held in 2019. The Partnership also included work with two of our long-term Partner organisations, The Booth Centre a charity for homeless people in Manchester and Wood Street Mission children's charity, to fundraise for their projects.
Background
Withington’s Junior and Senior School pupils performed alongside children from six Greater
Manchester primary schools as a massed choir at Manchester Cathedral on Tuesday 28th
November.
Over 200 children from across Manchester performed a repertoire of songs on the chosen
theme of ‘Our Planet’ and in the warmth of Manchester Cathedral, the choir took the
audience on a journey through all the seasons – sunshine, rain, snow, stormy weather and
rainbows. The songs were chosen to remind us all of the wonder of the natural world whilst
considering the challenges that face our world, but told a story with a message of hope.
Dressed in colourful t-shirts, evoking the image of a rainbow, the children performed with great enthusiasm and energy in front of a large audience of family, friends, school senior leaders, teachers, governors and staff, and distinguished guests including the Lord Lieutenant and the High Sheriff of Greater Manchester, the Lord Mayor of Manchester and Manchester Cathedral’s Reverend Canon Nigel Ashworth.
The concert, which has become an annual fixture in the school calendar, is the culmination of
an inter-school partnership project known as Manchester Sings. Through this programme, schools from across the region come together under the direction of Withington’s Director of Music. The children at the partnership schools work closely with her over many weeks of rehearsals before the final performance, and it is at the concert itself when the full choir first sing all together.
Performing as part of the Manchester Sings choir were children from Broadfield Primary School (Oldham), Old Moat Primary School (Withington), St Kentigern’s RC Primary School (Fallowfield), St Luke’s C of E Primary School (Bury), West Didsbury C of E Primary School, Wilbraham Primary School (Fallowfield) and Withington Girls’ School.
This was the fourth year Manchester Sings has taken place following the project launch in 2019. It was established to give the opportunity for children and young people from across Greater Manchester to come together to celebrate music and the power of song.
Another key aspect to the project is the creative writing activity. The children have the
opportunity to write poems inspired by the theme. Some were chosen to feature in the
programme and several were read by their authors during the event.
Manchester Sings once again acted as a fundraising event for The Booth Centre and Wood
Street Mission and was very kindly sponsored by Beaverbrooks the Jewellers.
