THE congregation at St Lawrence Church in Alton listened attentively as the Citizens of the World Choir sang some of their original songs after a Sunday morning service.

Formed in March 2017, the choir has performed at the Houses of Parliament, the International Eisteddford at Llangollen and also Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, but their performance at St Lawrence was a special homecoming for their musical director Becky Dell.

Becky grew up in Alton, attending Wootey and Eggar’s schools, and Alton College and her first excursion into the world of music was when she became a chorister in the St Lawrence Church Choir in 1986.

After college she went on to study at Trinity College of Music in Greenwich and eventually set up her own music academy which has 150 students.

The journey to setting up the Citizens of the World Choir also started at St Lawrence Church.

Recovering from surgery in late 2015, Becky was staying with her parents in Alton and they all attended the Christmas Eve midnight mass where she was challenged by the words of one of the carols which spoke of goodwill and compassion to all men. Having been moved by the picture of the three-year-old Syrian boy Alan Kurdi, who drowned and whose body was found on a Turkish beach, she was also concerned about how little goodwill and compassion was being shown to refugees and asylum seekers.

In 2016, with some of her musical colleagues, she went to the refugee camp called ‘The Jungle’ in Calais to give music lessons to many of the unaccompanied children who lived in the camp. During one of her five trips to the Calais camp she met Lord Roberts of Llandudno, a LibDem life peer who is a tireless campaigner for the rights of refugees and asylum seekers.

He invited Becky to join a parliamentary committee on refugees and asylum seekers.

In February 2017, Lord Roberts e-mailed Becky and said that he wanted to set up a choir for refugees and asylum seekers and would like Becky to be its musical director. Becky took up the challenge, recruited members for the choir and started rehearsals in March.

Named the Citizens of the World Choir, they gave their first performance at the Houses of Parliament in June. The choir is made up of refugees, asylum seekers and friends and includes people from 21 countries.

One of their patrons is Ian Shaw, a well-known jazz singer, and it was through his influence that the choir sang at the famous Ronnie Scott’s jazz club.

Another patron is the actress Emily Watson, who led a workshop with the choir in March. Having listened to the stories and journeys of some of the members, she wrote the words to a song which was put to music by the choir’s pianist, Tom Donald. Called Manomou, the first performance of this song was given at St Lawrence – and judging by the response of the audience will be another hit in the choir’s repertoire.

Another moving song, called I Can’t Keep Quiet, was developed from a protest song sung by women on a march in Washington and joined together with extracts from songs that had been written by people within some of the UK detention centres for asylum seekers.

Fifteen members of the choir sang at St Lawrence and they came from diverse countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, Central African Republic, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Kenya, India, and Latvia.