Costa del Sol pop choir leader: 'If you don't feel good, then I haven't done my job'

Storm Joseph might have been battering the Costa del Sol but it didn't stop 57 people turning up for a Costa Pop Choir session on Monday 27 January.

The energy inside Nerja Coworking on the town's Plaza de España was being created by Georgie Cullum, the founder and director of the choir and the singers - some regulars, some new and some just visiting Nerja.

Originally from Hampshire, 37-year-old Georgie has lived in the Axarquía for 10 years. She moved there with her parents, sister and her sister's family in 2016, just after the UK had voted to leave the EU.

The family already had a connection with Nerja as Georgie's grandparents had a property in the town which they had owned for over 20 years by then, so Georgie had been visiting regularly since she was a baby.

The classically-trained singer was working in London before the family decided to move to Spain and Georgie admits that as a musician trying to find her way in the UK capital and afford the rent, it was cheaper to live with her family in Spain and fly back to the UK as and when music-related work came up.

Georgie comes from a musical family and her dad is also a musician. She says she has always sung with her dad, who sings and plays guitar. Her first real accolade came when she won an award for exceptional musical talent in Hampshire aged 12 and she later went on to study at the Academy of Contemporary Music (ACM) in Guildford, Surrey.

While her training could have led to classical and operatic jobs, Georgie says that her first love has always been "pop, musical theatre and jazz". Georgie admits that "music is a very difficult thing to get into" and says it's a world in which you've "either got to know a lot of people, have a lot of money or be the son or daughter of someone".

So she started to teach singing and says she discovered how much she enjoyed, "helping others find their voices". In fact the first choir that Georgie set up was in Southampton: "that started my journey with choirs," she explains.

But a chance to travel to California and the opportunity to be a backing vocalist for a 'back to the 80s' tour came up in 2014 and Georgie took it up. She spent some time working with other musicians in the state and when she returned to the UK after her three-month stay in the USA - "inevitably I had no money" - she found a job as an estate agent. It was not something she had ever thought of doing as it had little to do with music, but it paid the bills.

It was shortly after this that the family decided to make the move to Spain and keen to continue her musical vocation and passion for teaching, Georgie originally started Costa Pop Choir in 2017. However, with ties to other music projects still in the UK and also in Denmark at the time, she wasn't able to commit to a regular schedule of rehearsals and by the time the Covid pandemic hit in 2020, the choir was small, but not really established.

The members did, like many people, continue to meet online and Georgie recognises that between the pandemic and other work commitments she just didn't have the time to really commit to it.

But Georgie says that in March 2025, "I woke up one morning and just thought, 'I need to bring Costa Pop Choir back'". She says that she wasn't really doing anything with music - the band she was involved in the UK and Denmark. By then she had also found a full-time job with a local company, which had nothing to do with music either.

The first choir practice took place that April to which 12 people turned up - a far cry from the 57 at that last rehearsal in January of this year, where there was a mix of nationalities (a quick survey suggested Brits, Irish, Dutch, Danish, Belgian, American, Canadian and one Spanish regular).

"Everyone is welcome, there's no pressure, says Georgie, who is passionate about making sure that everyone who thinks that they can't sing but would love to give it a go, does so: "It needs to be accessible," she says.

The clue about the type of music the choir sings is in the name: on that blustery night in January, Nerja Coworking was dancing to the beat of Take That's Rule the World, Andrea Day's Rise Up and Higher & Higher by Jackie Wilson. The choir gives concerts throughout the year, although Georgie insists that there's no pressure on all members to participate in them.

Georgie says about the choir, "If you don't feel good, I haven't done my job". There's little doubt that on that stormy Monday night in January, Georgie had done her job.