At the beginning of April, after 14 amazing years, our Chief Executive and Founder Marie Benton will be stepping down. From starting up the very first Choir with No Name in North London back in 2008, to overseeing the successful launch of seven choirs across the UK, singing with thousands of people with lived experience of homelessness throughout that time, Marie will be leaving a remarkable legacy. 

So, when it came to appointing her successor, we were looking for someone brilliant and dynamic who could lead us into an exciting new era, and we are thrilled to have found the perfect person in our brand new Chief Executive, Kate Wareham:

Meet Kate

I’m thrilled to be joining the Choir with No Name team. I have admired the rousing choirs and their epic performances for a long time. I’m looking forward to working with each choir community, and creating new choir communities across the UK

Kate has a passion for singing, having sung with her family and local choirs her whole life, set up and led office-based and community choirs, and still sings with Abbeydale Singers and other groups in Sheffield. When not singing, her life has been spent working in arts organisations, both as an Executive Director of Yorkshire Dance (interim) and Orchestras for All, and fundraising for ArtsAdmin and Music in the Round. She has also worked as a fundraiser and in a freelance capacity for charities including The Children’s Society, National Autistic Society, St John Ambulance, youth homelessness charity Depaul UK, family support charity Home-Start Trafford, Salford and Wigan, and HIV charity George House Trust.

She has the Licentiate of Trinity College London in music performance and an MA in Music Psychology from The University of Sheffield, where she focused on the use of music amongst homeless young people. Kate is currently in the research phase of her PhD at The University of Sheffield, exploring the role of music in managing temporary living environments with a focus on homelessness. When time allows she can be found upcycling furniture, tending to her two cats, and creatively cooking in the kitchen. 

Marie is over the moon to be handing the baton over to someone as passionate and inspiring as Kate, and we look forward to welcoming her into the CWNN family!