About us
Our mission is to connect, enable and enrich the lives of choir members, their carers and families, and the wider community, through sustainable therapeutic choirs.
Cantabrainers exists for people with neurological conditions such as stroke, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and brain injury, helping them to improve their voice and communication through singing and socialising.
Cantabrainers Choir was originally established in 2012. In 2018, the Cantabrainers Therapeutic Choir Charitable Trust was set up and took over the running of the choir in 2019.
There are now three choirs under the Trust:
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Cantabrainers City Choir meets on Wednesdays at the Mary Potter Community Centre.
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Cantabrainers North Canterbury meets on Tuesdays at the Woodend Community Centre.
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Connections Choir is for people with Dementia and is run as a partnership with Dementia Canterbury.
Our choirs are unique in that our members don’t have to be ‘singers’.
We sing to improve your voice - and to have fun!
Our songs are selected to support communication and connection.
We are here to help.
We use a combination of collective singing and individual support to bring out the best in everybody.
While our music therapist leads the choir, our speech-language therapist focuses on members who require individual support. Together, their combined skills provide members with clinical improvements while also fostering strong social interactions.
The sessions use a variety of elements of both music and speech therapy (rhythm, pace, pitch and volume) and enable those who have difficulty with vocal expression and communication to see meaningful changes.
Our members tell us they grow in confidence, enjoyment and energy with every session they attend.
And we have a lot of fun, too!
Socialising and meeting other people is a huge part of what our choir is all about.
We share morning or afternoon tea when we get together to practice, which gives members the opportunity to connect and make new friendships.
We also put on two concerts every year so that we have something to work towards and can share our joy for singing with whānau and friends.
"The music has been a real uplift and meeting new people has been so much fun. I have a lot more confidence now. It’s gotten me out of my cage."
Our Trustees
Current trustees of the Cantabrainers Therapeutic Choir Charitable Trust are Trent Hamilton, Graham Sattler, Jamie Hart, James MacKenzie and Philip Sewell.