Blackpool community choir hits all the right notes in digital harmony

The Blackpool Music Service (BMS) contemporary choir is the brainchild of Richard Moore, a sound engineer from Thornton.

Mr Moore spent 16 years as a performing arts technician at Bispham High School, before it merged with Collegiate school to become Aspire Academy in 2014.

Shortly before the merger he held a gospel choir reunion at the Bispham school, and after receiving positive feedback from former members about singing together again, he decided to set up the BMS contemporary choir in 2018.

Richard said: "When I was made redundant due to Bispham High School's closure, I wanted to keep myself busy but also provide somewhere for the members of the gospel choir to carry on singing.

"At the time there were no other contemporary choirs in the area, so I thought why not start one.

"I wanted to bring a choir together which enabled anyone over the age of 16 to join, regardless of ability and we don't hold auditions.

"The video was created as a way of bringing members of the choir together during the lockdown period, and to bring some positivity to a difficult situation during this crisis."

Daisy Meredith, 27, from Cleveleys, is an ex-member of the Bispham high school gospel choir and has been singing with the BMS choir since its conception.

She said: "We all really miss rehearsing with each other, we're all good friends and we wanted to find a way to keep singing together even though we can't go to our usual building.

"We have a Facebook group and a Whatsapp group for support, but we wanted to carry on singing and cheer people up at the same time.

"For some of us, singing got us through high school so when Richard set BMS up I jumped at the chance to join. The lockdown was starting to take its toll on people so we hope others enjoy our video online, as we're working on a second one."