Our History
Loud & Proud Choir started life in autumn 2004, as a ten-week singing course that was part of the Edinburgh LGBT Centre for Health and Wellbeing’s community activities programme. Initially numbers were low (at one point only three of us!) but we persevered and we gave our first performance, at the Centre, around Easter 2005. Numbers increased after a successful appearance at Pride Scotia that June and our first ticketed performance was our Festive Concert, held in the Augustine United Church in December 2005, where we had a near-capacity audience to hear us sing.
From those humble beginnings we have grown in size, year on year, with around 60 people now regular singers in the choir!
Over that time we have performed at many different venues and events in Scotland. Apart from our three big annual concerts (Spring, Fringe and Winter) in Edinburgh, we’ve also sung in Edinburgh and Stirling Castles, at LGBT History Month events, for Holocaust Memorial Day and World AIDS Day. We’ve travelled a fair bit as well – to Birmingham, London, Dublin, Paris, Munich and Bologna for the 2023 international LGBT choir festival, Various Voices.
We’re a proud and active part of the LGBT community (at home and abroad!), and fully believe in the power of music to connect with each other – singers and audiences alike.
Our Music
Our repertoire is as diverse as our membership and includes popular music, folk songs, light classics, festive and seasonal songs, LGBT anthems, and – of course! – show tunes. We have a small team of singers who work with our Musical Director to plan and arrange our growing repertoire.
Our Musical Director
Kathleen Cronie has led Loud & Proud Choir since October 2018 – for more information about Kathleen’s career and qualifications, please visit her website at https://www.kathleencronie.com/.