About Us
Well, the choir themselves are The Cranleigh Community Choir, they're what makes it special - they make the music that we arrange come alive! They're also a lovely group of people - and together we make some fantastic music. It's great seeing it come together and then there's the excitement of finally performing what we've been working on in front of an audience. Our annual programme is as follows:
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a weekly tea break mid way through our sessions
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an annual "do" in the room where we meet each week, with food and drink, and a quiz
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at the end of the Summer term in July, we have a lovely, intimate performance in front of friends and family (with nibbles)
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early December, we have our big Christmas show in the Jack Wagg Hall at the Arts Centre - it's always really popular and has a VERY enthusiastic audience! (we have a collection at the end of the evening each year for a registered charity).
with Eleanore on backing vocals
Sharon Duggan - Choir Leader/Music Arranger
Welcome! I set up the choir in January 2006 at Cranleigh Arts Centre, where we've been ever since (so 2026 is our 20th year - which feels weird, as well as pretty amazing! Alongside being the choir's founder and running it, I'm a professional singer (classically trained but working as a contemporary singer). I started on a semi professional basis at fifteen, but went on to become a regular session singer at Abbey Road and have sung ever since as a soloist, in duos, in a six piece vocal group, in a three piece vocal group, as lead singer in rock bands and more...
Over the past twenty-seven years, I also worked as a singing teacher and vocal coach, plus as a performance coach across Surrey, Hampshire and West Sussex, running longer courses, workshops and providing one to one tuition, but after 26 years of teaching individuals and groups, I decided to concentrate on being a singer and running the choir!
My teaching has obviously taught me a great deal about singing and breath control and as such, I'm very happy to help, but I have found over the years that generally the choir members really just want to come to the choir to unwind, to relax and enjoy singing with others (I will shortly be putting up a new page on this website about how to find a good teacher etc. but in the meantime, the following link to the Facebook page I ran for 10 years for singers, has loads of useful information about most aspects of singing and vocal issues:
https://www.facebook.com/sharonduggansingingteacher )
Please scroll down to Blog 43, where they start properly!
Eleanore Duggan - Principal Soloist/music arranger
Yes, Eleanore is my daughter. She's predominantly a singer/songwriter with three albums to her name (being the lyricist and composer), a composer, arranger and session singer. She has composed for independent films, was commissioned by the environmental charity WWF to compose the theme song for their 50th anniversary "My True Nature", which also acted as a stimulus piece for a nationwide competition for 11-16 year olds and also has composed a three movement orchestral piece "Asmakam - the Quest", which went to the Edinburgh Fringe.
She has an impressive 4 octave range (as you can hear from the end section of "My True Nature" on the audio player), and when we use her in the choir as soloist, it elevates what we're doing so that together, it's a great result!
Eleanore's website for her original music is at www.eleanoreandthelost.com
and her acoustic duo band is at www.theprettyupbeats.co.uk
We're incredibly lucky to have her!
