FRANKIE says relax, and explore your voice with Wren, the Okehampton-based specialist community and folk arts development organisation.

The Wren Trust has invited internationally-acclaimed singer Frankie Armstrong, for a day of vocal workshops.

Frankie will be joining Wren?s musical director Paul Wilson at the VoiceWork Day in Exeter next month. Frankie is a pioneer of voice workshops based on traditional styles of singing.

She is a uniquely inspiring performer and teacher, whose work in folk and political songs started in the 1950s.

Over the last 30 years, she has developed a worldwide reputation as a workshop leader, and is one of the leading lights of the ?Natural Voice? movement in England.

Frankie has especially focussed on the body-voice connection, having worked and trained with a variety of body-work and movement teachers to develop an unrivalled skill in allowing people to release and find new power and range in their voices.

She has always been fascinated by the way that using the voice can enhance the individual?s sense of well-being, and develop a sense of community between people.

It can link in to the thread of a song that comes down through the generations and centuries.

Frankie has also written and edited books on singing and voice work, and has released a number of critically-acclaimed CDs on Harbourtown Records.

The workshops are designed to offer a warm, inclusive day for people of all ages who would like to sing, whatever their experience or vocal range. It is a chance for people to come together, to release their voices and learn new songs with two hugely experienced vocal experts.

Paul Wilson is a songwriter, composer, arranger, researcher and performer of great experience and standing. Over the past 20 years, he has worked in a variety of performance and workshop settings, including schools, universities, theatre companies and community halls, in choral, orchestral and community projects.

His arrangements of folk songs for harmony groups have become widely used, and choirs he runs have toured to Italy and Germany.

The VoiceWork Day will be held on Sunday, July 18 from 10am to 4pm at Whipton Barton Middle School, Hill Lane, Whipton, Exeter.

For further details contact Wren on 01837 53754.