Festival diaries: Voice Project leader Sian Croose

Mary HamiltonSian Croose of the Voice Project shares her thoughts for the day.Mary Hamilton

Sian Croose of the Voice Project shares her thoughts for the day.

This year's Norfolk and Norwich Festival has been a great festival for the Voice Project.

We have been collaborating with two extraordinary and innovative musicians, Jan Bang and Arve Henrikson on this year's commission, 'Recording Angel'.

We have a larger choir than ever before and have been creating and rehearsing the piece since March, with Jon Baker of the Voice Project and Jan and Arve collaborating via meetings in London and Oslo and extended complicated emails!

Jan and Arve arrived in Norwich on Wednesday to put the final touches to a work that will fill the cathedral with extraordinary sounds - beautiful choral pieces framed in a sonic world of space and light.

There is something very particular about premiering a new work as part of a festival.

Somehow we pick up the creative momentum that is generated and that adds to the energy of the project.

There are more than 100 people in the choir, many of whom will be attending Festival performances when they aren't rehearsing.

The festival really does transform the city's atmosphere - there is a sense of possibility, openness, adventure and energy which seeps into the gaps between things.

Home is a theme that seems to have cropped up a lot in this year's festival. Our senses have been affected so that we might hear and see the place where we live in new ways - red balls in unexpected places, catching the sound of seven ice cream vans, singers humming their parts at bus stops, conductors walking around the cathedral cloisters conducting invisible choirs.

Recording Angel will be performed by The Voice Project this evening at The Cathedral, starting at 8.00pm.

For more information about the Festival or to book tickets, visit www.nnf10.org.uk or call 01603 766400.