Aug 10, 2026 · 49 min · 11 segments
Send us Fan Mail Is “wellbeing” just fluffy choir talk, or is there more to it? How healthy is your choir, really? The warning signs might surprise…
Kerry PolkinghorneHostSo that was one that I designed it myself because, like I said, this was the issue I had about not being able to open up myself about my struggles with my singers and feeling very visible at the front of the room with all eyes on me.
So I literally, I can remember doing it, I literally got a huge pad of paper and I wrote a list of examples different kinds of things that I thought could come up in the choir room.
But it was, we might have some singers who require chairs to sit down all night while they're singing.
Nobody was actually really saying, why didn't we sit for the rehearsal? Then I said, okay, we might have some singers who have social anxiety.
So maybe they would like to sit to the end of the row or at the back of the room and not right in the bulk of the crowd.
So you might want large print lyrics because, you know, for whatever reason, your eyesight is not so great.
So why aren't we making that available? By the way, if there's any publishers listening, I really wish publishers would let us change the format of the music to suit our singers.
I really, really wish we could pick and order large scale, individual part, all that kind of thing, because that for inclusion would be groundbreaking.
And then every time I sort of went, oh, should we? I made myself go back to my written down model and go, no, you said you wanted to do this.
They joined because someone had recommended because they knew what they would get when they came to join us.
And which is why our choirs are so diverse even today, which is why people are still flying across the world.
So that was one that I designed it myself because, like I said, this was the issue I had about not being able to open up myself about my struggles with my singers and feeling very visible at the front of the room with all eyes on me.
So I literally, I can remember doing it, I literally got a huge pad of paper and I wrote a list of examples different kinds of things that I thought could come up in the choir room.
But it was, we might have some singers who require chairs to sit down all night while they're singing.
Nobody was actually really saying, why didn't we sit for the rehearsal? Then I said, okay, we might have some singers who have social anxiety.
So maybe they would like to sit to the end of the row or at the back of the room and not right in the bulk of the crowd.
So you might want large print lyrics because, you know, for whatever reason, your eyesight is not so great.
So why aren't we making that available? By the way, if there's any publishers listening, I really wish publishers would let us change the format of the music to suit our singers.
I really, really wish we could pick and order large scale, individual part, all that kind of thing, because that for inclusion would be groundbreaking.
And then every time I sort of went, oh, should we? I made myself go back to my written down model and go, no, you said you wanted to do this.
They joined because someone had recommended because they knew what they would get when they came to join us.
And which is why our choirs are so diverse even today, which is why people are still flying across the world.
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