Becky's musical and activism journey began at the age of 7 when she was the first girl to sing in her 800-year-old church choir. She graduated from Trinity College of Music in 2002 and was in the West End and European cast of the dance and percussion show, Stomp! After a trip to teach music in the Calais refugee camp, The Jungle, in 2016, she was invited to Parliament to work on refugee issues. She co-founded the choir in 2017 at the request of Lord Roberts and has been its conductor, leader and driving force ever since, leading Citizens of the World to become the UK's leading refugee and allies choir.
With the choir, she has conducted at The Houses of Parliament, Glastonbury Festival, Buckingham Palace, Shakespeare's Globe, The Royal Opera House, St Paul's Cathedral and worked with artists such as Basement Jaxx, Elbow, Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Emily Watson OBE and the UNHCR. Becky is proud to head up a female-led progressive arts organisation that puts values at the centre of its change-making work.
In 2023 Becky was nominated for the Women of the Year Award, and in 2024 was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts. She has also received awards from Amnesty International and the Top 100 Female Entrepreneurs in the UK.
Links - https://www.thersa.org and https://www.womenoftheyear.co.uk/
Creative Director Meg is one of the choir's founding members, working with the organisation since its genesis in 2017 after joining conductor Becky Dell in collecting local donations for five trips to the Calais Jungle.
Classically trained (cello, piano, vocals), she has established a career as a sought after multidisciplinary collaborator with recording, live, TV & film credits as a performer, arranger and Musical Director for artists including ABBA, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Jools Holland, Patrick Watson, Emeli Sandé, Sir Tom Jones, BBC Radio London, Jules Buckley, John Grant, Dermot Kennedy, Laura Mvula, Basement Jaxx, The Staves and has even conducted at The Royal Albert Hall for composer Nitin Sawhney CBE.
She is also an arranger, vocalist & project manager with London Contemporary Voices, a world-leading alternative choir bringing the best session vocals to projects, including 20+ Grammy Winners & nominees, for over a decade.
In parallel, her songwriting project - MEG ELLA - has been featured on BBC Introducing & BBC Radio London, supported by Arts Council England and been featured on stages & at festivals including Glastonbury, Nišville Jazz & Theatre Fest (Serbia), WinterWerft (Germany), Magdalena Montpelier (France), Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, The Roundhouse & Pizza Express Live.
“A singer songwriter, composer and all round musical genius, who effortlessly picks up instruments and makes it look infuriatingly easy. She is incredibly talented, in high-demand, a furiously booked up woman, and one of my favourite artists.” Salma El Wardany, BBC Radio London
Rachael is an experienced arts professional who has worn many hats in the industry. She worked in Stage and Company management for theatres and festivals across the globe, during which time she produced several short films and treatments. Over the pandemic she moved into audio and produced several BBC Radio shows. She also curated and hosted podcasts for arts organisations including Dash Arts. Rachael has now found her niche in Creative Producing, and works with socially conscious organisations to bring their message to life. Her clients have included Searchlight Pictures, Soho Theatre, the World Wildlife Fund, and Penguin Random House.
Tess Berry-Hart (they/them) is a writer, musician and refugee rights activist, who helped found the Choir in 2017 after two years spent volunteering for the Calais Jungle. Their novels and plays are highly influenced by refugee stories and themes. Tess has also advocated for refugee rights on the BBC, ITV and news media. Their favourite song that the choir has performed is Sure On This Shining Night.
Barny joined the Citizens Of The World family as our pianist in early 2021.
After completing his undergraduate studies at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance (BMus - Piano Performance) and his Instituto Superiore di Studi Musicali "Pietro Mascagni" (MIMus - Piano Performance - FULL MARKS) Barny Jones has established a substantial performance career as a session pianist, function musician, accompanist in contemporary, jazz & classical genres and is an essential part of our musical team, contributing to our bespoke arrangements & repertoire.
Rachel is the Citizens of the World Choir Members Manager and is in touch with all our singers, new and old. Her kindness is the glue that holds our family together.
She is a teacher, an active volunteer in aid of the refugee crisis and is studying for a Degree in counselling.
Maddy Hamilton is a professional cellist, collaborator and educator. Her long-standing passion for community music has led her to work within a wide array of projects with organisations such as the Wigmore Hall, Trinity Laban and Creative Futures. Maddy has been happily part of the COTW community since September 2019.
Australian Tom Donald is a piano virtuoso and came on board as the Vice Musical Director and pianist for Citizens Of The World Choir in 2017 when it first began. His classical roots, mixed with a strong interest in all styles including Latin, folk, classical, soul, rock, jazz help form the foundation of our unique sound.
Tom is regarded as a master of improvising these styles by critics and audiences alike who have witnessed his solo piano concerts. He has played a string of international concerts both solo and with his band, has composed for film and is the founder of the London Contemporary School of Piano.
Tom remains strongly connected to COTW and during lockdown masterminded, composed and produced an extraordinary EP in collaboration with the choir - recording us over Whatsapp alone.
When he's away from the Citizens team, Fran is a singer-songwriter (under the alias Heren Wolf) & session singer.
Since he was 6 years old, he trained as a ballet and contemporary dancer in Italy but after a serious injury he devoted himself to music.
He moved to London in 2016 where he attained a Bachelor Degree in Songwriting and joined London Contemporary Voices and Citizens of the World choirs. He has performed with Stu Larsen, Ian Shaw, Basement Jaxx, Elena Tonra and more in some of London’s most prestigious venues.
With his own music he tries to raise awareness on political and social issues such as LGBTQIA+ and migrant rights, transfeminism, racism etc and writes wonderful cinematic, emotive music.
Acclaimed by Dance Europe Magazine as one of the finest Indian classical dancers of his generation, Ash was handpicked by the This Is It! team to dance a duet with Michael Jackson at London’s O2 Arena in 2009.
He then went on to appear in BBC 3’s Move Like Michael Jackson and worked with choreographer Lavelle Smith Junior (choreographer Dangerous Album World Tour) to create a dance solo which married Indian classical temple dance to Michael’s iconic song Man In The Mirror, which was watched by over three million viewers nationwide.
Ash has been with the choir since it’s inception in 2017. He is currently touring with his one person play Vishnu’s Got My Back, a queer coming of age story set in post colonial Kolkata and London.
We met Aga in a very special project, when we collaborated with the Royal Opera House and Little Amal, a 3.5-metre partly-animatronic giant puppet which was used as the centrepiece of a performance art project called The Walk in 2021. We immediately fell in love with his infectious energy, passionate spirit and phenomenal musicianship. We are delighted to have him as one of our Associate Artists and work with him regularly through workshops and performances.
Aga serugo-Lugo is a vocalist, clarinettist, pianist, composer and workshop
leader. He sang in the 9 piece Funk band “Gefunkt”, and also composed
and played for the jazz-fusion group ‘Eclectiv’.
Aga has delivered community workshops for Sing-up, Royal Opera
House, ENO Engage, Music in Detention, Britten Pears Arts and Turtle Key
Arts. He works in Education settings for SEN Schools, Trinity
Laban, Pegasus Opera, London Sinfonietta and BBC Proms.
In addition, Aga co-runs Camberwell community choir and runs sessions
for Group A in Lowestoft and Ipswich.
Compositional projects include music for theatre: Street cries of London,
Wiltons Music Hall (2009), Verona road, Intermission theatre (2010), The
Conspirators project, The Yard (2012), Core Blimey: A Corby Musical
(2014) and The Old Man And The Sea (2019). The Winds Of Change
(2022). Our Fire (2022).
Associate Artist / Poet in Residence E.E is an Egyptian artist and poet who has found a home in COTW for the past few years.
E.E regularly contributes their work to performances and features monthly on the Citizens Of The World choir social media. Their poems are based on their paintings and often influenced by songs. They make refrains and choruses - half in Arabic and half in English - adding rhythm so they can be sung. They have performed their poems and sung in venues including The Union Chapel, Amnesty International, the Southbank and Parliament. Their most recent performance was at Woolwich Town Hall with COTW, where they did a live translation of one of their poems into Arabic.
Lord Roberts is a patron, sponsor and the heart and soul of COTW. The choir was his brainchild and having been a methodist minister in North Wales, a Peer for over ten years in the House of Lords and a humanitarian force to be reckoned with, few can claim to have a similar record in tirelessly campaigning on behalf of those less fortunate than himself.
"I always remember the remark of the youngest choir member following the choir performing at the Llangollen International Music Eisteddfod - "the best day of my life".
The choir didn't quite come about by accident! The desperate plight of the Syrian people, continuing to this very day, led us to look for a way to help Syrian refugees - the government's response was less than we'd hoped for and a number of us wondered how we could help and bring a little hope to the lives of some from many countries. "Let's form a choir!" - a Welsh response!
And a choir was formed with scores of folk from over 20 countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe uniting to sing. They were joined by britons led by Becky Dell, the most inspired volunteer possible, as a musical director. The choir goes from strength to strength and sings at a wonderful variety of venues. Of all projects I've been involved in over many years - the Citizens of the World choir is a very special place!"
Emily Watson is a celebrated British actor and a vocal humanitarian campaigner. She has been a supporter of the choir since it's genesis, has run workshops with our members. performed along side us and has even contributed words for one of original compositions.
Click HERE to her BBC Sounds Loose Ends interview where she talks about the acclaimed series Chernobyl and Citizens Of The World Choir.
"It's like taking a bath in the opposite of hate". - Emily Watson
Gulwali Passarlay is the author of The Lightless Sky, TEDX Speaker and award nominee. His acclaimed autobiography The Lightless Sky; A Twelve-Year-Old Refugee's Harrowing Escape from Afghanistan and His Extraordinary Journey Across Half The World, was published in 2017. Gulwali is also Politics major at the University of Manchester, and was nominated for the 2016 Nansen Refugee Award by the UNHCR.
Ian Shaw is a highly acclaimed British jazz singer and musician and an indefatigable campaigner and hands on volunteer in the support of the Refugee and Calais Crisis.
"I met COTW Choir [musical] director, Becky Dell, in the Calais unofficial refugee camp, known as 'the jungle' - a difficult, unpredictable microcosm - a unique and lawless community, marked by hurt, rage, hope, despair, love - and very often - music.
To watch the COTW Choir grow from this, endorsed by Lord Roberts of Llandudno - and to be a small part of a unique and ever-expanding new musical family, whose voices and spirits are equal, is an immeasurable thrill. Equal in song. Equal in world citizenship. We are all from somewhere else. And when you hear music as joyful, varied and moving as the COTW choir, that's a very good place to come from."
Ann Mitchell is a celebrated British actor, a vocal campaigner and advocate of refugee rights and a proud supporter of humanitarian organisations including TRAUMA FOUNDATION SOUTH WEST, a psychotherapy and counselling service for highly traumatised refugees and asylum seekers, of which she is also a patron.
“I’m honoured to have been asked to be a Patron of the Citizens of the World Choir a choir for migrants, asylum seekers and their friends, the brainchild of Lord Roger Roberts, the Liberal Democrat peer of Llandudno
On a balmy night last June, I attended the launch of the choir at the House of Lords. To see so many men and women, some newly arrived from war-torn countries and some elders who had escaped earlier conflicts in Africa and Asia singing together, at first tentatively and then building in confidence under the direction of Becky Dell moved me deeply. In times of such darkness as the world is facing, to experience such joy and committment was uplifting. The atmosphere was one of immense joy and gratitude .. Everyone sharing their stories, their dreams and hopes for the future.
As Sonia, a 32 year old from Iran said “We say to the world we are one, we are citizens of the world”. Proud to stand with them."
