Street Choirs Festival, Sheffield, 7–9 June 2024

Twen­ty-three mem­bers of Protest in Har­mo­ny trav­elled to Sheffield for the 2024 Street Choirs Fes­ti­val, which took place from 7–9 June 2024.

It was fit­ting to be back in the York­shire city, as this was the 40th anniver­sary of this won­der­ful event, which orig­i­nat­ed from a street bands fes­ti­val first held in Sheffield in 1984.

This year, our hosts were three Sheffield-based choirs: Carfield Com­mu­ni­ty Choir, Out Aloud, and Sheffield Social­ist Choir. Vol­un­teers from all three choirs worked hard before and dur­ing the whole week­end to ensure every­thing went with a swing; not easy when host­ing 45 choirs and more than 1,000 participants.

The event began on Fri­day evening with a run-through of the songs planned for a Massed Sing on Sat­ur­day, led by five song lead­ers, includ­ing PiH’s Pen­ny Stone. This was fol­lowed by a great con­cert, fea­tur­ing an acoustic set from Sheffield­’s won­der­ful Sparkle Sis­taz, who write all their own songs. They were fol­lowed by The Young ‘Uns, a trio from Stock­ton and Hartle­pool who did a beau­ti­ful set of life-affirm­ing folk songs, many based on true-life sto­ries, and end­ing with a fab­u­lous ver­sion of James’s Sit Down anthem.

Sat­ur­day was an intense day of singing, start­ing with two busk­ing per­for­mances by PiH in the city cen­tre. Led by Pen­ny Stone, Jane Lewis and Shereen Ben­jamin, we sang a num­ber of songs in our allot­ted 20-minute slots, includ­ing The Chil­dren Are Always Ours; Stop Rose­bank!; Cit­i­zen Shan­ty; and Free­dom Come-All-Ye.

At 12:30 all 45 choirs assem­bled in Sheffield­’s Peace Gar­dens, where we were wel­comed by Jayne Dunn, Lord May­or of the city. We then sang five won­der­ful songs, all togeth­er: One World, One Chance, led by Liz Nicholas; Can’t Eat Mon­ey, led by Val Regan; Let’s Sit at the Table, writ­ten and led by Kate Thomas; L’Hurriya Jaya (Free­dom is Com­ing), with Ara­bic lyrics by PiH mem­ber Hala George and Pen­ny Stone and led by Pen­ny; and con­clud­ing, as always, with a rous­ing ren­di­tion of Bil­ly Bragg’s Inter­na­tionale, led by Janet Wood.
Pen­ny lead­ing the mass sing of L’Hur­riya Jaya (video)
There were then two con­certs, show­cas­ing most of the choirs, with a won­der­ful range of songs and styles. PiH had rehearsed intense­ly for our con­cert per­for­mance on the Sat­ur­day evening and we were delight­ed to step up onto the stage just after 9pm, to per­form three songs: Ros­es and Bread, writ­ten by Pen­ny and led by Shereen; We Refuse, writ­ten and led by Jane, based on words from Israeli con­sci­en­tious objec­tors; and a ver­sion of well-known protest song Bel­la Ciao, with Ara­bic words by Hala George and Pen­ny and led by Penny.

Per­for­mance over, we were free to enjoy the rest of the con­cert, which was fol­lowed by a rous­ing ses­sion in the bar, where many songs were hearti­ly sung and a drink or two was taken.

Sun­day morn­ing offered a pletho­ra of dif­fer­ent work­shops for all to enjoy. Some mem­bers of PiH then joined oth­ers to sing at the pro-Pales­tin­ian occu­pa­tion being held by Sheffield stu­dents. The fes­ti­val offi­cial­ly end­ed with a pic­nic in West­on Park.

A fab­u­lous time was had by all. It was Protest in Harmony’s largest-ever con­tin­gent at the fes­ti­val, even though five mem­bers had to drop out due to ill­ness. Huge, huge thanks to our won­der­ful lead­ers, who licked us into shape for a real­ly good con­cert per­for­mance; and a mas­sive thank you to John Ire­son, for organ­is­ing us all through­out with effi­cien­cy and good humour.