The Choir recording in Lightship 95.

Explore the work-songs of the golden age of sail with our resident artistic director of maritime music Pete Truin.  As well as running our open-access adult shanty choir, The Trad Academy also provides shanty workshops for schools, festivals, businesses and organisations working with older people.

Since their heyday between 1815 and 1870, shanties have remained a popular form of song for both sailors and landsmen alike.  The workshops we run focus on building a repertoire of shanties that were used for different jobs on board ship.  We explore more authentic styles of singing as well as contemporary arrangements of shanties and other nautical songs in 3, 4 and 5 part harmony and our sessions frequently involve movement work.

The Trad Academy Sea Shanty Choir was established in 2013 as an open-access adult community choir, providing an opportunity for singers of all abilities to come together and sing songs of the sea, and rehearses on an on-going basis.

The choir doing their stretches before the recording session

The choir continues to go from strength to strength and has had a busy first year, from it’s first inaugural public performance in The Thames Festival to appearing at an exhibition opening at the Royal College of Art.

Trad Academy Sea Shanty Choir perform at Trip Space

As well as having a busy performance schedule in London, the choir continues to be invited to perform at venues and festivals around the UK and abroad.  The Trad Academy Sea Shanty Choir has worked alongside some of the finest performers from the maritime music scene including Jim Radford, Andy Kenna, Keith Kendrick and Sylvia Needham.  The choir also regularly collaborates with London based shantymen The Ballina Whalers and chamber folk collective Firefly Burning.

You can follow the choir on twitter @ShantyChoir

The Sea Shanty choir was recently lucky enough to be the subject of an ethnographic film made by Martina Drigo.  You can watch the film here.

The first ever Trad Academy Sea Shanty choir workshop at the Harrison pub Kings Cross