"Stand By Me" The Lancaster Boys Choir I commented on the BBC network program "The Choir" on this blog on July 31. In the series, Concert Master Gareth Malone who conducts the London Symphony Orchestra Community Choir attempts to create choirs in the most unlikely settings. In the first season he went to Northolt High School a school with no music program and recruited a choir that he took to the World Choir Olympics in China. The project took one year. A year later he went back to see what affect the experience had on the participants. In the second season that is airing now Malone went to Lancaster High School one of the largest boys schools in the United Kingdom an athletic oriented school with no choir singing program and began putting together a boys choir. The goal was to present his choir at a music festival at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall in London. To make it into the festival the choir must be assessed and pass rigid standards.
He has to overcome the boy's perception, shared by many on the staff, that singing is not for boys (men). It is only for sissies, and gays. The boys who do enjoy singing do it in private. A group of rappers do their thing off to the side.
Slowly Malone draws a few boys to the choir and rehearsals begin. He begins a choir among the staff and starts a campaign for the head physical education coach. At first he seems to have one of the rappers interested but the boy, Imran turns against him.
They make it into the festival and rehearsals begin after summer break with only half the choir returning. He begins a phone campaign and gets them all back plus a few more. Finally Malone convinces the rappers to listen to a professional group of musicians who perform much like the boy's own style and draw them in.
The BBC crew does a masterful job of drawing individual boys aside to pull their feelings out as the story develops. We get to see how the choir is affecting them. One boy who does not learn well finally admits he can't read the music and gets help. He realizes he can do it, and stays. The pride on his face is amazing. Other boys begin to exhibit changed behavior as they are drawn into the group experience.
We hear Imran tell about why he has dropped out of the choir in the beginning. It had to do with going to the karaoke with his dad or friend and hearing someone say he wasn't that good. It shut him down. In his group of rappers he is o.k. but not in front of an audience.
After Malone draws his rap group called the Beatboxers into the choir with the introduction of the professional group doing a similar type of music, Imran begins to get his confidence back. Malone convinces him he could sing a solo in the Royal Albert Hall performance. You see the result at the end of the YouTube video above.
I love the show. I like Glee for the entertainment value and the music the kids perform. But I have to admit when I watched "The Choir" this morning and the kids began to sing, I had a hard time seeing the screen through the tears. Seeing 150 boys and their teachers on the stage in the Royal Albert Hall singing like.
The kids themselves admitted that it had brought them together. The Beatboxers were hugging the timid kids that they intimidated just a year before.
Next Wednesday's show will be about Gareth Malone's reunion with boys and staff one year later. Was there carry over in his absence? Did the experience last? It will be interesting to find out.
Respectfully,
Kenneth Fenter
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