THANKS in part to the phenomenal popularity of the BBC's Last Choir Standing, community singing has seen a huge surge in popularity.

Choral Societies have always been a popular place for people to gather and sing the classics - the Messiah, Dream of Gerontius, assorted requiems and the like.

But more recently, people have been drifting towards more informal singing groups, such as Weymouth's hugely popular Quangle Wangle Choir, where African spirituals and Native American chants rub happy shoulders with numbers by the Beatles and Kirsty MacColl.

Dorchester Community Choir is a thriving group of 25 regular members led by Kathie Prince. They meet once a week to rehearse and take part in a wide number of events, from Dorchester's annual arts festival and its Christmas Cracker celebrations to the Festival of Choirs at Stourhead.

Next year they are also being lined up to take part in a traditional mystery play.

Kathie said: "There is something incredibly compelling and powerful in the community side of singing and my heart is totally in it.

"Wherever I have lived I have always started a singing group. They are a brilliant way of getting to know people."

She added that new members did not have to audition to join the choir, need not worry about singing solo and didn't even have to be able to read music.

"However there are solo spots for people who feel they want to sing on their own," she added.

Kathie is a singer and instrumentalist with a passion for performing, teaching and travelling. She has worked in professional theatre and with communities throughout Britain, Ireland and abroad.

She trained as a clarinettist at the Guildhall in London but from there moved into teaching drama and musical theatre. From there, she moved into physical theatre before starting work at the Commonwealth Institute where she ended up having tea with the Queen and Prince Philip while dressed in rabbit skins.

"We were performing a piece of eco theatre called Gaia's Song and I was supposed to be an escaped zoo exhibit," explained Kathie. "I had to sit in a box wearing a few skins and school kids would come and see what we were doing and I would emerge from the box.

"Then one day the Queen and Prince Philip came to look round the institute and we were all brought out to meet them and have tea - and I was there in my skins, my face all painted. It seemed quite normal at the time."

It was while she was at the Commonwealth Institute that Kathie met Frankie Armstrong, who instigated the Natural Voice Movement and is widely regarded as the mother' of community singing.

After this, she worked in the Orkneys and in Ireland and also travelled to India where she took part in an international performing arts school - again in the company of Frankie Armstrong.

It was around this time that the highly regarded composer, jazz drummer and improviser Steve Harris contacted her with a request to work together.

The partnership became personal as well as professional and Kathie and Steve had two daughters - May and Bella - and moved to Dorchester when Steve became community arts officer in Poole and then music development officer for Dorset Music Service.

When Kathie formed the community choir, it sang and recorded with Steve's experimental sound outfit Zaum - and the ensemble also sang at Steve's funeral in January this year after he lost his fight with liver cancer.

"The choir has been a huge support to me," said Kathie. "It was wonderful when they sang at the funeral and after that, I felt I could go to rehearsals and just get away from everything else for that period of time. It was a huge help."

Kathie has great plans for Dorchester Community Choir and hopes more people will come along and join up.

"I really want to commission someone to write some new music for us, and it would be great to have more people - we need more men!

"I think that some people might be put off the idea of a community choir because they think we just get together to sing in Macedonian every week - but that's not so.

"We sing traditional music from all over the world and yes, we sometimes do sing in different languages. But I also want to get us out there singing to new and different people."

Dorchester Community Choir meets every Thursday between now and December 18 (excluding October 30) from 7.30pm to 9pm in Dorchester Arts Centre, School Lane, The Grove, Dorchester. Either just turn up or for further details call Kathie Prince on 01305 259201 or email kathiemprince@btinternet.com