Singing Your Stories is a project commissioned by Cultural Spring to connect older people with musicians.

Commissioned as a “non-digital” project by Cultural Spring, We Make Culture worked with agencies in Sunderland and South Tyneside, such as Age Concern, WHIST and link workers, to identify older people who may have become isolated and lonely during COVID-19 lockdown and/ or may not have access to technology, such as Zoom. We matched the participants with a musician, who then linked up and chatted over the phone about their lives, and then the musicians wrote an original song, based on the stories they’d shared. The musician then played a “phone gig” for the participant and we sent out packages, including a CD and lyric sheet.

The team of musicians- Holly Rees, Ashleigh Lowes, Paige Temperley, Jennie Brewis, Shaun Chipp, Eddie Scott, Beccy Young and Ami McGuinness- uncovered stories of Greenham Common rioting, going to sea at 15, Sunday dinners on South Shields beach and singing for the forces in WW2. We discovered no one’s life is “ordinary” and everyone’s life deserves a song!

We’re currently exploring ways of developing this project in the future.