biography
 
 
unity was begun by accident in 1992, when a Sunday School teacher asked if a few of us mums would sing a unity with trophy song in the Christmas performance. We were asked to sing the spiritual, 'Steal Away', and gave them more than they had bargained for by singing it in 3 parts. Word got around the village that we were good, and more requests followed. Membership rose as more friends asked if they could join in, most of whom had not had the opportunity to sing since leaving school. We were known as the 'Mum's Choir' for some years, then following appearances at local festivals were named 'The Marsden Cuckoo Chorus'. In 1999 we put our foot down and decided for ourselves on the name, unity. We felt that this one word was enough to describe our aims as a group.

At this time our popularity was growing and requests were coming in from further afield. We also decided to enter a local choir competition, and won 1st and 3rd place in two categories. This led to even greater interest and more bookings!

In June 2002 we launched our first CD ‘no handbags’ and in 2004 we recorded our second CD ‘white horses' along with another name change to ‘unityvoices’. This came about because people always seemed to add bits to the end of ‘unity’. We have been everything from ‘Cuckoo Singers to ‘Mum’s Choir’ and lots in between. Unityvoices describes what we are perfectly.

Around this time we heard some startling news. Helen our Musical Director and very good friend was going to move with her family to Australia. ‘The end of an era’

Helen found us the perfect person to take over her role as Musical Director ‘Peter Simons’.
This was a scary time for us as we wondered how this talented, enthusiastic young man would manage such a gregarious and sometimes opinionated group of women. We need not have feared. One of the first appearances with Peter as our MD was with the London Gospel Choir as part of the Marsden Jazz Festival. Peter did us proud and many members of the 600 plus audience complimented us on our performance.

Under Peters direction we have recorded two more CD's.  The first, a Christmas compilation of Traditional and Contempory songs two of which have been written and arranged by Peter, and our latest "Circle of life" which reflects the groups love of gospel singing and demonstrates we have grown and developed under Peter's tuition.

Unityvoices are confident that with Peters guidance we will continue to extend our repertoire, entertain our audience and most importantly enjoy our time singing together.

unity with Mundy-Turner