THE renowned Commoners Choir will be performing on Saturday, January 20 at 10.30am in Burley Library (Grange Road).

This is part of the campaign to ensure that Burley retains its lovely community library. All are welcome and entry is free (although donations for library funds will be very welcome).

Boff Whalley is the founder of the choir, and a musician and writer who is perhaps best known for being the former lead guitarist for the anarcho-punk and folk band Chumbawamba. He has performed at the Ilkley Literature Festival on a few occasions, including leading a fell-running session on Ilkley Moor.

The choir is dedicated to singing about the world, its inequalities and injustices, and to have fun while doing so. The words the choir sing will be angry and clever, but sung with as much harmony, melody and earworms as they can muster! The songs are all original and mostly written by Boff.

And they love libraries. Boff said: "There’s something about singing in a library that feels right. Possibly it’s to do with the physicality of the paper, the smell and weight of all those pulped trees having the effect of being in a forest clearing. We’ve sung in six libraries now, and they’ve all been very different buildings - but the long shelves of books all have the same allure, heavy and tactile, all those words packed tightly in leaves and rows."

There will also be a small exhibition of words tracing the history and legacy of print. The choir released their first album in March 2017 and copies will be available at the event, along with tea and cakes.