ICU Liberty Singers

CREATING SUPPORT AND FRIENDSHIPS THROUGH SINGING

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ICU Liberty Singers

Join the ICU Liberty Singers to sing safely together whilst we are apart.  Think more ‘Killers’ than ‘Kum-by-yah’. Since restrictions have been lifted, we’ve been able to meet face to face and share the singing joy together! We’ve also been invited to sing live at conferences and most recently in a pub with another choir.

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Singer Stories

Our choir members share the impact that singing together has had.

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Singer Resources

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The ICU Liberty Singers is an online choir, open to ICU staff across the NHS, giving critical care workers the opportunity to come together and sing. The choir began as a collaboration between Kari Olsen-Porthouse (aka Liberty Singer)  and Dr Alison Pittard, Dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine and Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. One hundred singers signed up within 48 hours of launching the project on Twitter. 
We rehearse online (via zoom) every two weeks, and produce regular recordings of our songs. Our first recording – Every Breath You Take (We Watch Over You) was released as a single in December 2020.
“Singing is a mindful activity. It’s harder to be distracted by the everyday noise in life if you’re busy creating your own tune. Anyone can sing and sharing it just makes it better! Who knows where this project will end?”
Kari Olsen-Porthouse, Liberty Singer

Welcome to Your Choir

I am Kari, your choir director. I run several choirs including my community choir and other large virtual choirs. I was a primary school teacher in a previous life and have been running successful choirs for 10 years. It is my passion, my calling and my absolute pleasure.

I believe we all feel a bit better when we sing and that this is amplified massively when we sing together. Even though we sing online on mute, there is still and energy created and a sense of togetherness which is quite special. There’s no need to read music or to have had any previous choir experience – just come along and let yourself go!

This website has all the lyrics as well as audio files for teaching harmony parts. I will go through these during rehearsals but they will be available for anyone who wants another listen later. Missed a rehearsal? If you’d like to catch up, full rehearsal audio recordings will be available on this website too. You can do as much or a little as you like in between sessions.

Going to be late to rehearsal? Totally fine – just come along when you can. Everyone arrives on mute so it won’t disturb us at all. I’d rather people came later than missed out.

Each session is designed to be fun, stress-free and provide a pocket of joy for everyone. I choose songs from across the decades which you will know and love (or learn to love!). Sometimes there are many parts, sometimes just a few but we’ll be taking things at your pace so as not to leave anyone behind. 

I hope you enjoy singing together with me! Let our singing journey begin……

We continue to create virtual recordings together and more recently have recorded songs at our social meet ups. This has meant that when we have performed, we can include many people unable to attend and give a really clear sense of the sound we make. Have a listen and see what you think!
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