John James

Louth Male Voice Choir will celebrate their most successful year in more than 40 years with a summer concert at St James' Church on Saturday

A highlight of the summer in Louth will be the annual summer concert by the town's Male Voice Choir.

It will be a celebration of 40 years with musical director, Graham Burrell at the helm. He has led the choir to one of its most successful years ever.

In the last year the choir has been top in the National Choir Competition at the Eskdale Festival of the Arts in Whitby. They also ran a successful recruitment programme, Men United In Song, culminating in a lively charity concert on behalf of Prostate Cancer UK and Help For Heroes at Louth Town Hall in December 2025.

A quarter of the choir members joined LMVC following their participation in the Men United In Song programme this last weekend. On Saturday June 20, at St James' Church, Louth, starting at 7.30p the choir will perform a summer concert including music from Abba, The Proclaimers, Sir Elton John, John Williams and "What we going to do with a drunken sailor."

This year the choir are joined by the Bluestone Big Band. They will perform popular vintage 1940s pieces and classic Glenn Miller arrangements.

Choir spokesman, Richard Keeble said: "It's been quite a remarkable year for the choir. Our recruitment campaign, Men United in Song, attracted 21 chaps - and we gave a very successful concert with them at the end of last year.

Then earlier this year at the national Eskdale Festival we actually won the sea shanty category, beating a choir that advertises itself as having been voted twice The Best Male Voice Choir in the World and another choir that had appeared on Britain's Got Talent. In our other two categories the adjudicator said he couldn't really decide between the first two so gave us two runners-up with honours awards. It was amazing."

He added: "If you are a man of 18 years or more and interested in finding out more, please come to a rehearsal at 7.30 pm on Tuesday evening at Louth Town Hall." The summer concert will include performances by Amelia Whitfield, winner of the Lincolnshire Young Musicians competition for 2025 and singer Grace Ojo. Tickets for the Summer Concert are available here.