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The Nightingale Choir performs live on BBC Radio 4

The Nightingale Choir, from the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing & Midwifery at King’s, performed live on Sunday 8 August with the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT) Staff Choir at St Thomas’ Chapel as part of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Sunday Worship’.

The service took place close to the centenary of the death of Florence Nightingale, 13 August, and celebrated her life and faith, and reflected upon the legacy of her work in the nursing and midwifery profession. 2010 is also an important anniversary year for the School as it celebrates 150 years as direct descendents of the Nightingale Training School established by Florence Nightingale at St Thomas’ Hospital in 1860.

The service was led by Reverend Mia Hilborn, Chaplain of Guy’s and St Thomas’, and featured an address by Reverend Tom Keighley, Fellow of the Florence Nightingale Foundation. Second year adult nursing student, David Bendell, and first year midwifery student, Olivia Wheeler-Robinson, also gave readings.

The Nightingale Choir, which comprises both staff and students, was founded in 2007 by Ian Noonan, lecturer in mental health at the School, and Mary King, from VoiceLab at London’s Southbank Centre. The Choir forms part of the School’s unique and innovative Culture and Care programme which is offered to both staff, students, and alumni and explores the role that the arts, and in particular music, can play in the professional development of nurses.

The Nightingale and GSTT Staff Choirs performed a range of pieces, including hymns and ‘Deeper, Wider’, a newly commissioned choral piece by the School’s composer in residence, John Browne, and is a setting of words by Florence Nightingale – “I believe we have relations to each other, that are deeper, wider and more enduring than the ties we see”.

Ian Noonan, founder of the Nightingale Choir, spoke of what it meant for the Choir to be involved in the programme: ’The Nightingale Choir provides people with the opportunity to think about the voice of nursing and midwifery in a new and dynamic way. Nurses and midwives use their voices to calm, reassure, liaise, advocate and heal on a daily basis, and this is a wonderful opportunity to add a new aesthetic and hopefully beautiful element to our vocal repertoire. It was also great to meet and work with our NHS trust partners through song. We were delighted to contribute to this act of worship and celebration.’