interview with citizens of the world choir
‘We feel that the ethos of this show is so much about being forward-looking as a cultural sector. This play and this process has challenged us as theatre artists to interrogate our role in cultural provision, asking what responsibility we have as part of a global community to think about our impact on the planet.
It has been a joy to partner with the Citizens of the World Choir on this project. A choir made up of people from 30 countries around the world, connecting displaced individuals, refugees, and vulnerable persons through music and song. From the beginning this collaboration has been characterised by friendship and compassion. We have deeply valued our time visiting the choir rehearsals, singing together, eating together, and creating together. We can’t wait to share this work with audiences.’
- Holly Race Roughan and Iskandar إسكندر R. Sharazuddin (Headlong)
Ahead of their performances in A Play for Living in a Time of Extinction, Aref, Becky Dell and Meg Ella Brookes from the Citizens of the World Choir talked about the group’s genesis, evolution, and the particular importance of this collaboration with Headlong and Katie Mitchell
Take us back to the beginning…
Becky Dell, Musical Director (BD): In 2016 Meg and I and some other musicians went to the Calais Jungle. We wanted to use music to help impact the world for good, and went there to teach music to children in a school. We travelled over five times, each occasion loading up a couple of vans with food, tents and clothes. But we specifically wanted to do something to help people feel good and human: it’s not just about surviving, it’s about thriving as well. It was a life-changing experience, and we met some amazing people, including Tess [Berry-Hart] and Rachel [Hattingh], who we started the choir with. And we are still running it together.
Tess invited us to Parliament where we met an amazing person called Lord Roger Roberts, who was doing a lot of work in the human rights sector and on refugee rights. He was second signatory to the Dubs Amendment, named after Lord Dubs who himself was a Kindertransport child rescued from Nazi Germany. Lord Dubs had put forward an amendment to the Human Rights Act, that we (the UK) would take 3,000 vulnerable refugee children from Syria. This of course was at a time of conflict in Syria. The government, to its shame, said no, we’re not going to do that. Lord Roberts had spent a sleepless night worrying about these children and, being a Welshman, he thought music might be the answer. He contacted us and said, ‘how about we do something for people already over here, and set up a choir?’ And so the Citizens of the World Choir was born.
Socrates said, ‘I’m not an Athenian, I’m not a Greek, but I am a citizen of the world’. All this happened around the time that then Prime Minister Theresa May said ‘if you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere.’ We do not agree with that.
We had our first rehearsal in March 2017 and launched in Parliament on 20 June that year, on International Refugee Day. The choir started off as a five-month experiment but we somehow forgot to stop. It turned out to be the best thing all of us have ever done in our lives. And here we are, six years later, after an amazing set of experiences, from performing at Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Concert and at Westminster Central Hall for a UN celebration of the life of Kofi Annan, and appearances on BBC Radio, Sunday Morning Live, BBC World Service, Ronnie Scott’s to projects with the Royal Opera House and now with Headlong.
Meg Ella Brookes, Creative Director and Assistant Music Director (MEB): To recruit singers, we did a lot of shout-outs, we sent out flyers translated into as many languages as possible, we went to local refugee organisations, and reached out to any connections we had in the semi-local area, and to the arts sector. There were 30+ people at the first rehearsal. From the beginning we committed to having a 50/50 split of members: people who’ve had the refugee experience, are asylum seekers or identify that way, and their allies. Our allied members are from the local area and speak English as their first language.
BD: We set up the choir with three things in mind: firstly, to help with healing through the power of music; secondly to aid community integration - and at our very first meeting we decided the choir would be proudly non-auditioned, and proudly mixed community; and thirdly to change the narrative around refugees and migrants, to highlight the important contribution they make to our society.
We wanted to challenge the language being used at that time by people like Nigel Farage and David Cameron about refugees and migrants - our fellow human beings. People don’t want handouts: they are escaping war and persecution and climate change through no fault of their own. We would want to be treated with equal dignity and humanity if it happened to us. If you think about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, when we were in the Calais camp it was very much about survival, and we say our choir is the next step along the refugee journey. You’ve got here, you’re settled down, you’re looking for a community. That’s when we step in and offer help.
Q: How did the very first rehearsal in 2017 go?
BD: We have a music team of four who are all professional musicians; West End, TV and orchestra performers, who trained to a very high standard at music college. Artistic excellence is a huge part of what we do. And we have an admin team of four people who are human rights activists. For me, it’s this Venn diagram of politics, human rights and music. We are being politically active by existing.
I remember saying at the first rehearsal that I don’t want audiences to look at us with pity and think, oh, it’s the ‘Refugee Choir’. I want to change the narrative, I want people to be impressed because we’re offering musical excellence. There are lots of refugee choirs. Ours has a very strong commitment to community integration by having a 50/50 system. We have 60 people in our choir representing 30 different nationalities, so none of us look like each other, but we are a family.
From the first rehearsal, we realised we had something special. We use the words 'synchronicity’ and ‘serendipity’ to refer to the Citizens of the World choir. It just falls into place.
Q: What does it mean to be a choir member?
Aref, Creative Assistant: In 2020, I was here in London and looking for a community. I saw one of the choir’s flyers when I was in a hostel in South London. I was looking for something offering integration like this so I texted Rachel, the choir’s member manager, and she responded that because of Covid-19, the sessions were taking place online. So my first session was online. Everyone was talking and I didn’t know what was going on - but it was really good!
BD: In fact, Aref was so amazing that about a year ago we began to employ him as a creative assistant. He now works as part of our team, and has just earned a scholarship to Ravensbourne for his photography and design work.
Aref: I come from a very strict family background - we don’t sing. But singing makes me happy; that’s the most important thing actually. I enjoy it. I initially joined for the community I wanted to have, but it has inspired my photography and other creative art too.
Q: What commitment is expected of choir members, when their living circumstances might be precarious?
BD: One of the biggest problems with living in London is the expense. We spend about £400 a week covering travel expenses and do a lot of grant writing and fundraising to enable that. We have to facilitate this opportunity for those who want to come. We serve snacks and offer data packages, try to get winter warmer grants to help people with clothing, food and energy bills, and sometimes we connect our members with legal advice. In Covid times we got secondhand devices to connect everyone, translated our online sessions into multiple languages and ran training courses to help people to be digitally connected. Sometimes people move on through no choice of their own, when the Home Office moves them to different parts of the country. We often write letters asking for them not to be moved from their community and that we are looking after them. It’s heartbreaking when that’s ignored.
Aref: Most of the refugee choir members travel over an hour and a half to come to choir.
MEB: Our singers are very committed. The people that come understand that a community only functions if you invest. And everybody invests. All we ask is that they show up, which can sometimes be very difficult to do.
Q: How did the choir become involved in this production, A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction?
BD: Initially we met with Headlong’s community producer, and I felt they were a great match with us. They used all the right language, and were thoughtful and inclusive. Lots of people want to work like this but don’t know the extent of what’s required behind the scenes. To us, Headlong are industry leaders.
MEB: The openness and inclusivity of the conversation with Headlong was and has been brilliant. There was no agenda beyond creating a great piece of theatre. This was a great example of entering into a conversation with people who may not have the same experience as you, but forging ahead to the same goal.
Q: What was the creative process for the choir?
BD: The brief was that we’d be singing a song towards the end of the play. We’d only have about 500w of electricity to work with, which meant we wouldn't be able to sing with a piano as we usually do. So we are singing to a very cool backing track that is made up of sampled sounds of bikes. The play will be touring to other locations and involving local choirs, but as we’re the first we’ve worked with the composer, Paul Clark, for two months to develop the piece of music. We have all really enjoyed that process.
It will be the first time the choir has performed without me conducting as I will be singing. So it’s been really important in rehearsals to make sure the singers become really secure with the score.
Q: How does the story of the play resonate with your own mission?
BD: Hugely. There are a vast amount of displaced people in the world because of climate change. We talk a lot about war and persecution, and less about climate change. And some people are displaced within their own home country because of climate change. The UN say we will see that number soar in the coming decades.
We are also pro-environment in the COTW office. We aim for carbon neutrality, and we plant 40 trees every month; and we do much more, like green audits and using electric vehicles.
MEB: Our primary cause is not climate change but it is hugely significant to our choir members. And it’s wonderful to see artistic organisations being openly passionate about it, and how they’re moving their grain of sand by being innovative and committed to those ethics. This production is a phenomenal example of walking the talk, and it will be interesting to see how the concept develops.
Q: What’s next?
MEB: We have lots of big ideas, that’s what we do. The sky is the limit, but we are talking about ways to extend what we’ve learned and share source material that will help communities to set up their own branch of COTW choirs so that we can reach more people.
BD: We are hugely ambitious and I’d like us to be known internationally. The world feels fractured at points, but I don’t think it is. Bad news exists when people profit off selling it. But we’re showing how peace, community, love and lifting each other up can really help.