VoxFresh singers express lockdown highs and lows
Vocalist Flossy, 10, writes lyrics and stars in group video
TEN-YEAR-OLD Flossy loves singing. So it was a dream come true for her to write and star in a video for a Newbury vocal group.
The Cimorelli (US singing group) fan, from Hermitage, has been singing since before she could talk, filling her days with made-up gibberish songs.
The youngster joined the group VoxFresh in March 2019 and was excited to be given the opportunity to bring her lockdown-themed lyrics to life.
Laughter and Love (A Lockdown Song) comprises her lyrics and the work of 17-year-old Ellie from Newbury and 16-year-old Abbi from Baughurst, who joined to create the musical elements.
The song was performed by VoxFresh Newbury’s young vocalists, aged from four to 18, and a music video was filmed earlier this year.
You can view the video on YouTube – www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Qw5EZqEB2sk
Flossy said: “Singing makes me feel better and Kat [VoxFresh vocal coach] helps me and my voice to grow. Voxfresh always gets me buzzing even if I’ve had a bad day.
“I wrote the words of Laughter and Love as part of a project during lockdown. We were asked to write words about the pandemic and how it made us feel.
“It’s the first song I’ve ever written and it makes me feel proud, emotional and all excited inside.’
Ellie added: “The lyrics
Flossy wrote really reflected exactly how lockdown felt for us all – looking at the positive and negatives of lockdown and the emotional rollercoaster it sent us all on.
“Watching the video has really made it come together the way that I, and I’m sure Flossy, had hoped it would.”
Kat Penn, vocal coach at VoxFresh, said she has witnessed the impact of singing on young people since her own choir experiences as a youngster.
She added: “There is no doubt that singing has a huge impact on the mental health of young people – projects such as Laughter and Love has provided the singers with a creative platform to express their feelings
about a difficult period of their lives, and then work as a team to turn this into a new positive feeling and achievement together.
“Projects such as this have prompted me to start a charity, VoxThrive, to specifically help young people engage in their vocal creativity in this way.”
VoxThrive is a new charity aimed at supporting young people’s mental health in the Thames Valley through singing.
Plans are under way to create a series of programmes – facilitated
by local musicians and set to include songwriting skills, musical production and confidence building – to help young people use singing to make them feel good, and keep feeling good.
The programmes are due to launch in early 2022 and more details will be released on the VoxThrive Facebook page (@ voxthrive).
If you are interested in volunteering for VoxThrive you can contact info@voxthrive.com
The lyrics Flossy wrote really reflected exactly how lockdown felt for us all