[B]6.30 The Choir 27 / 3 / 11[/B]

[DracoM]

[B]6.30 The Choir

Aled Jones presents the spectacular final concert of the Voices Now festival, live from the Roundhouse, London.

Featuring performances from The London Symphony Chorus, The Holst Singers, The BBC Singers, The Roundhouse Choir and The Latvian Radio Choir.

Plus, he discusses the future of British choral music with a distinguished panel of festival participants.

[ardcarp]

I've just heard it. What a strange event! However, anything that fosters choral singing must be good.

If anyone really wants his/her horizons widened, tip up at The Kings Place tomorrow (Monday) for a performance by Exaudi of (some of)John Cage's song book. I'm reliably informed that no song ever sounds the same twice.

http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on-book-tickets/music/exaudi

[rauschwerk]

I heard the start of the discussion (much of it in typically chief exec language, I thought) and plan to hear the rest very soon. These people were full of optimism about the future of choral singing in the UK. The Sing Up! programme is doing a lot of good, it seems, at least to the extent that it gets children singing. From my (perhaps limited) perspective, though, it looks as though many of the new choirs that are springing up are singing entirely pop music in two-part arrangements. That is certainly the case with the youth choir which I accompany. One panel member yesterday, referring to the difficult times being experienced by some choral societies, opined that if these choirs were not meeting the needs of their communities then perhaps they deserved to wither away.

I was moved to reflect that in the end we might have two-tier choral singing: classical music sung by professionals and a handful of amateur choirs (members mainly privately educated) and pop music sung by everybody else (mainly state educated). Am I being pessimistic? If this happens, where will people in provincial towns go to hear good performances of the major masterpieces?

[DracoM]

Sorry, but a lot of the chat was between those who have a serious vested interest in suggesting that what they are doing is a success. A lot of it was the merest self-aggrandising propaganda.

Easily the best MUSIC and most CHORAL response in the show came from the Latvian choir. A lot of the rest was undoubtedly well-rehearsed fun, but predictable busy but empty sound, many of whom seemed to be audiitoning for X-Factor or similar.

I'm with rauschwerk.

[rauschwerk]

It has worried me for some time that although we go on congratulating ourselves on the quality of British professional choral singing, our amateur choirs don't seem to expose themselves to international comparison in the way that they used to. Look at the films of international choral competitions on YouTube. Much of the singing is excellent, but British choirs are conspicuous by their absence.