During these strange times, Covid has impacted us in many unforeseen ways. We care about the amateur singing groups we are part of, sing with, teach, adjudicate, and support throughout the year. Below is a little video and some tips on how you can get involved to help ‘bring back music groups’, a worthy venture in putting pressure on the government to take amateur musicians as seriously, as professionals.

The UK government has now issued guidance on reopening the performing arts.

The guidance prohibits amateur groups or groups with amateur participants – unlike professionals – to play or sing together, except in the numbers of people currently allowed to meet in public.

It goes further to say that singing and playing wind and brass instruments isn’t even allowed in those numbers.

The guidance (England only) will only be reviewed when the results of just commissioned research into droplet and aerosol transmission of Covid-19 are available. The devolved administrations are expected to issue similar guidance shortly (Wales: this week, Scotland: next two weeks, NI: n/a).

This is disappointing, as many of us were looking forward to meeting again, even with strict risk management measures, and were already hard at work creating a new normal, just as pubs, hairdressers and gyms are doing.

It is also surprising that there is no explanation why amateurs are being treated differently to professionals in this guidance.

See more about how you can help here.