September 2001 to October 2007

Katherine’s other commitments meant that she had to leave us in the summer of 2001, and we appointed Sharon Durant to take her place. Since she joined us Sharon has had two breaks for maternity leave during which time we were led by Rachel Unthank. As the choir grew and its leaders changed, it began to develop as an organisation and become more and more active. It was agreed that it should become more independent and hold its own bank account to help pay for trips to more distant events and for extra rehearsals over and above those funded by the Libraries and Arts Service. In 2004 a formal committee was appointed to run the choir and a constitution was adopted. In January 2005 after a great deal of deliberation we left our long-term home in the Caedmon Hall in Gateshead Library and moved to a new rehearsal space in The Sage Gateshead.

During the time of Sharon’s leadership we:

organised Ceilidhs to raise funds for Amnesty International,

a ceilidh to celebrate the life of a late and much-loved founder member and raise funds for her favourite charity, Guide Dogs for the Blind.

Performed at the Musical Gateshead concert in the Caedmon Hall, Gateshead as part of Local History Month, May 2004

performed on Newcastle Quayside on the final day of the Tall Ships Races in July 2005

made a guest appearance at Heaton Voices choir’s fundraising concert in the Peoples Theatre, Newcastle, in November 2005

In June 2006 The Caedmon Choir and Heaton Voices choir from Newcastle jointly hosted the 24th National Street Choir Festival, based in and around The Sage Gateshead. It was an excellent example of cross-river cooperation between the two choirs and an embodiment of the festival’s 2006 slogan, ‘building bridges’.

November 2007 to the present time

Our 20th Birthday concert in October 2007 sadly marked the end of Sharon Durant's time with us but she provided us with an excellent replacement in Eleanor Mooney, our current leader who joined us in November 2007.

The Caedmon Choir’s involvement with Folkworks

In September 1997 Folkworks began running their Tuesday night Caedmon Folk workshops in Gateshead library and the Caedmon Choir were incorporated into these events along with the Redheughers Ceilidh Band. At this time the Regional Music Centre was still in its early planning stages but it was understood that Caedmon Folk would eventually move to a permanent home there when it was completed. The Regional Music Centre, now renamed The Sage Gateshead, has come to fruition and when it opened in December 2004 the Caedmon Choir was offered the opportunity to move to a new rehearsal venue alongside the Caedmon Folk workshops and other activities from January 2005.

The choir left the Caedmon Hall with a little sadness after a long and happy association with Gateshead Council's Library And Arts Team, but also with great excitement about the future and new opportunities, and the very good wishes of the Library and Arts Team who hope it will grow from strength to strength. It has been the nature of the choir to grow and develop and this is the next step for a new century and a new venue - long may it continue.

...ooo000ooo...

Extremely grateful thanks go to Ednie Wilson, Creativity Development Manager with Gateshead Council, and to Freda Hibbert, Sylvia Kettle and Marie Wheeler, long-term and founder members of Caedmon Choir, for their help in compiling this historical overview of the choir

...ooo000ooo...

As a result of research into the history of the Caedmon Choir for a booklet produced to celebrate the choir's twentieth birthday a number of photographs of the choir taken from 1993 onwards have been collected together.

Some of them appear in our publication

'Celebration! Twenty years of Caedmon Choir'