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One to One: Gospel music in Cornwall: Gillian Burke and Ley Adewole

Gospel music in Cornwall: Gillian Burke and Ley Adewole

BBC Radio 4 - One to One, Gospel music in Cornwall: Gillian Burke and Ley Adewole

Gillian Burke explores her love of singing gospel music in her hometown of Falmouth.

The biologist and presenter Gillian Burke explores her love of singing gospel music with the director of the Falmouth Community Gospel Choir, Ley Adewole.

In 2014 the biologist and presenter Gillian Burke joined a community choir in Falmouth in a bid to strengthen her voice.  Singing is Gillian's passion and it's her way of switching off from work and the pressures of life.  Ley Adewole is the Director of the Falmouth Community Gospel Choir.  Ley began singing in a Pentecostal church in Coventry; she joined various singing groups, got spotted and went on to do session work.  She relocated to Falmouth and set-up a gospel music workshop to fill-in the winter months.  The choir was born, welcoming in people of all faiths, and even those who can and can't sing.  

Gillian quizzes Ley on singing with conviction and how the science of singing melds with the emotions of the music.  They talk about the gospel music scene in Cornwall and how the Cornish accent influences how the choir sounds.  They speak about an early choir performance when Ley was standing on fishing crates in her heels so she could be seen by the choir, and how the music transformed a sceptical audience into one full of men crying into their beer.  

Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Toby Field

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