Childrens Voices for Hospice Concert cancelled

Date published: 16/05/2006

Springhill Hospice’s 14th annual ‘Childrens Voices for Hospice’ Concert, which was scheduled to take place on Saturday 20 May is one of the casualties of the decision to close the Champness Hall.

The event was to feature choirs from nine Primary schools from right across the Borough, as well as Rochdale Boys Choir, Rochdale Girls Choir and Rochdale Borough Youth Band, all from Rochdale Music Service.

Ian Jenkins, Fundraising Manager at Springhill Hospice, says, “I received a telephone call from the owner of the Champness Hall several weeks ago explaining that, due to difficulties with legislation, he was unable to keep the hall open beyond the end of March. I called a meeting of representatives of the participating schools, along with tutors from the Music Service and we were forced to conclude that, for this year, the event as a one-off concert simply could not go ahead. The whole event was very much structured around the facilities available to us at the Champness Hall, not least that we could seat over 800 people in the audience and 300 children in the choir stalls – there just is not a venue of that size anywhere else in the Borough. The irony of it is that we moved the concert from March to May in the hope of making it easier for everybody to fit it in with their busy school calendar and with the Music Service’s many commitments!”

Mr Jenkins went on to say, “In its place, each school has kindly agreed to put on their own concert – still under the banner of ‘Childrens Voices for Hospice’ - in a bid to raise the funds that we would have raised by holding the event. Sadly, however, it does means that the children will not get the opportunity to experience singing on a big stage in front of a full house, which is a shame because, to many of them, it is that which sticks in their mind. We are hoping that we can reformat the event for next year and bring the children back together again for the traditional one-off concert, all be it on a smaller scale.”