Sarah-Jane Gibson explores how five community choirs construct and imagine collective identity formations within the complex setting of Northern Ireland. Building Community Choirs in the Twenty-First-Century investigates how singers engage in their choral practice and demonstrates how this engagement can move towards a re-imagination of identity constructs.

Working with diverse choirs in disparate locations, with different repertoires and demographics resulted in the creation of an integrated comparison that draws out both diversity and commonalities of approach revealing the malleability of choral practice. Original ethnographic research is framed through communities of practice, a theory of learning through engaging with other people in a common endeavour.

Gibson demonstrates how choirs re-imagine identity through the manner in which they organise, rehearse, and perform, developing a distinct choral identity and ethos, transcending boundaries through their practice. Choirs re-imagine multiple conceptions of identities within their groups, including gender, later age, religious faith, inclusivity and ethnic diversity, that can both influence broader structures of community in the region, and be influenced by them.

Sarah-Jane Gibson is a music lecturer at York St John University in York, England where she also works as a research associate within the International Centre for Community Music (ICCM).