Emily is promising mass outbreak of joy on the Chichester stage

She is masterminding United Voices at the venue on Wednesday, January 15 (tickets from the CFT), with a dozen schools from the Chichester area coming together to sing songs with shared messages and values. The result will be a joyful and uplifting evening of bright young voices, she says.

Emily, who will conduct, explains: “This is reprising something that has happened a few times but as with everything it got interrupted by Covid but it is basically what it says on the tin. It is about united voices with hundreds of children from Chichester primary schools. There about 12 schools taking part and it is an initiative that was generated by the schools themselves who wanted to do something together. There is the O2 Young Voices which is 20,000 children going to the O2 and singing together in huge choirs. It's something that people take their children to, and a lot of schools want to do it but it is a very big commitment. So they were looking for something that they could do that had the same values but that they could do locally.

“And the lovely thing is the Chichester Festival Theatre treats us a professional company. We spend the morning there rehearsing and then they perform (starting 18:30), and again they treat us like professionals.

“This used to be put on through West Sussex Music but now it is through me independently working with the schools, and the theme is always based around something to do with the school values that the schools have like community or kindness or positivity or singing together or resilience. The schools have got their values on their walls but the fact is that you really embed those values when you sing about them. It's such a great way to do that.

“We have got almost 400 children taking part and I separate them into two choirs. The point is that every child gets the chance to sing on stage.”

Among the items will be Emily's own song Change Maker which she debuted at the Royal Albert Hall a few weeks ago: “It is about how children's voices are the voices of the future and they have the power to change. It had its premiere at the Royal Albert Hall with the Portsmouth choir and this will be the second outing for it. I think it will probably be the closing number.

“I have deliberately programmed music that is freely available for young voices to sing from varying music websites. I wanted to show that there's a lot of stuff out there for young voices that you don't have to pay any money to access. You just have to know that it is there. I really want to spread the word about what is specifically available for young voices to sing.”

And what the children will walk away with is joy: “I think there is something incredibly special about the feeling when you get together and sing with hundreds of other voices. It's magical. Singleton primary school for instance is probably only about 80 children in the whole school so to have that experience of singing together as part of 400 voices will be something incredibly new and special for them that they just won't have done before. And also it's the fact that they will be doing it in a professional environment and who knows, it might just be the spark that makes someone think that this is what they want to do for their career.”