About Candy Verney

Creating communities through singing

Candy Verney’s passion is to inspire and create, through singing, a sense of harmony which gives an experience beyond the ordinary.
For 40 years she has been building communities through song, with children, and then with community choirs in many forms.

Teach na nAmhrán/The Song House

Over the last 6 years she has fulfilled a dream of a lifetime, renovating and developing an inspirational retreat centre in the wilds of Co Donegal, Ireland.  She runs Singing on the Wild Side singing holidays (link to page ), and Community Choir Leadership Trainings there (link to page), as well as a programme of other life enhancing and cultural events. It is available for hire by other groups too. More information at www.thesonghouseireland.com. 

The Pan-European Choir

Experienced singers from different European countries get together for a long weekend twice a year in each other’s cities, for an intense and inspirational singing weekend. (Add Youtube link-Pan-European Choir). Strong bonds have formed between singers, it is a truly European singing community.

Song Books

Over the last 8 years, Candy and friend/collaborator Lindsey Williams have written several books of songs together. Candy uses her extensive experience of teaching choirs to make arrangements of Lindsey’s thoughtful and lyrical songs, arrangements which are rewarding to sing and bring out the essence of the original song.

The Trowbridge Song Project

From 2013 – 2015 Candy developed The Trowbridge Song Project, with two aims: one was collecting and archiving for posterity stories of migration from people who have arrived to live in Trowbridge from diverse shores, but now call this Wiltshire town home. You can hear short audios from these stories on Soundcloud. The entire oral history collection is also archived at The Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, http://www.wshc.eu/.

The other was building friendship and community between people from many countries, by sharing their songs. We had 3 big concerts, with acts from Africa, Eastern Europe, Turkey, Jamaica, Tibet, Poland, Guyana, and massed choirs involving hundreds of singers. You can see videos on YouTube.

For more information, go to www.trowbridgesongproject.co.uk

Watch an inspirational film about the project by Samiha Abdeljebar here: http://trowbridgesongproject.co.uk/about/wings-of-song-film/

Over 15 years Candy developed and directed a group of 5 choirs in Bath and West Wiltshire called “Singing in the Round”, that joined together to celebrate seasonal festivals in special places. This has been the catalyst for many other choirs forming, so that now every town in the area has a community choir.

Candy’s inspirational choir ‘Sounding It Out’ , which she directed over 7 years, continues under the leadership of Caroline Radcliffe.

Candy’s work encompasses The Song House, Co Donegal, Singing holidays- Singing on the Wild Side; Soul Soundings; Community Choir Leadership Trainings. She is in regular demand throughout the UK and mainland Europe. She is a member of the Natural Voice Network.