BBC News
By Mark Savage
image captionLucy s Pop Choir managed one rehearsal before new restrictions were put in place
Last Monday, as lockdown restrictions eased, choir director Lucy McLean posted a selfie from her first real-life practice since October 2020. It might look like shock on my face but it was actually pure joy! she wrote on Facebook. I love my job so so much and it was an absolute pleasure to get back to it tonight. There were about 15 of us there, McLean tells the BBC, and for one of the singers, it was the first time that she d come back to the choir since the first lockdown.
An Andover choir has called on the government to let them sing after it banned them from singing together indoors a day after restrictions changed. Andover Ladies Choir was looking forward to returning to singing together in Thruxton Memorial Hall, with its membership having sung on Zoom throughout lockdown. However, on May 18, a day after lockdown rules changed in England, amateur singers were told they could only be in groups of six. “We feel like we’re being discriminated against for no reason,” said Clare Oliver, the choir’s musical director. “Football crowds can sing a chant in their thousands, but we can’t with sanitisation and temperature checks with more than six.”