A community gospel choir who thrilled the UK during a TV talent show last year are among the guests at a forthcoming music festival.

The Isle of Man Festival of Choirs takes place next weekend, and will welcome seven visiting choirs, competing alongside three local groups for the grand prize of ’Choir of the Festival’.

Among the visiting groups are the EAGA Gospel choir, from Leicester, who reached the finals of the TV talent show Britain’s Got Talent in 2018.

Known as the ’Friendly Choir Festival’, the competition will be split into four classes, with the winner of each class going forward to the final round on Sunday afternoon.

The male voice class will see the local group, the Lhon Dhoo Male Voice Choir sing alongside two British groups from Macclesfield and Haydock, and the ladies choir class will feature two groups, the Rodillian Singers, from Wakefield, and the island’s own Manx Voices choir.

The mixed choir class will hear from the Blackburn People and the local choral group the Glenfaba Chorale, and the festival will also feature an ensemble competition, which will hear from the Eclipse singers.

New for this year is the open class, which will pit the Gospel choir against another group of visitors, the Abbey Belle Ladies barbershop quartet.

Organiser Geoff Corkish said that they have introduced the new open class to encourage a greater variety of singing and music into the festival.

’We are especially excited about our new class, the open class, which we hope will attract many more different types of singing to the competition,’ said Geoff.

’The EAGA Gospel choir are quite a famous choir and , aside from their success on Britain’s Got Talent, they have also appeared many times on the BBC ’Songs of Praise’ programme.

’With them and the Abbey Belle singers singing in the new class, the range of music for this year is fantastic.

’This is exactly why we have introduced the new class to the festival, to bring all sorts of different styles of singing that we have never had before. We are all looking forward to hearing them sing.’

The annual festival regularly attracts hundreds of people to the island to compete, and carries a top prize of £1,500, along with £500 for the winners of each class.

The festival takes place on Saturday and Sunday, October 19 and 20.

Details of the festival schedule and ticket information available from festivalofchoirs.im

by Mike Wade

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