The conversation went something like this:

“Let’s do a video from lockdown to cheer up everyone who is stuck at home”
“Why don’t we do God Only Knows (what we’d be without you)? It would be a perfect thank you to the NHS and keyworkers”
“We could all get dressed up in beachwear”
“We could do it as a fundraiser for the BBC’s Big Night In”
“When’s that?”
“A week on Thursday”
”Can we do it by then?”
“I don’t actually know if we can do it at all!”

Nine days later, it turned out that we could do it. And not only did we do it, but the video has now had over 17,000 views, it was featured on three local radio stations around Manchester, it was played on a world renowned a cappella internet radio station, and it’s raised over £2,000 for the Big Night In.

It was a lot of fun for everyone to get stuck into a project like this, and it was also a way for us to remember our fellow singer and friend Dr John Kelly who died shortly before we recorded the video.

Best of all, the overwhelming feed-back to the video has been along the lines of: “Thank you for bringing a smile to my face – I needed that”.

Lots of people asked how we did it, to which the simple answer is that we each recorded our own part at home, and our impromptu sound engineering team mixed all the tracks together. We then performed the song on a Zoom conference call. We’d be happy to share the technical detail of what we learned along the way with anyone who’d like to have a go at this themselves.

Here’s the video for you to enjoy:

and you can also find it on our Facebook page where you can also see our MD Neil Firth’s thank you to everyone who donated.

And our Just Giving page is open until the end of May, so there’s still time for you to make a donation to help organisations who are in the front line supporting people who are struggling in these difficult times.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/cottontown-chorus-big-night-in

Thank you and stay safe, everyone.

The Cottontown Chorus