Gareth's musical mission
By Benedict Moore Bridger
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Gareth Malone with some of the pupils of Northolt High School
LONDON Symphony Orchestra choirmaster Gareth Malone is a man on a mission. His aim to uncover raw singing talent in a typical comprehensive school and - in just nine months - create a school choir that is good enough to compete in The World Choir Games in China, forms part of a new BBC2 documentary called The Choir.
Step forward Northolt High School, which has no tradition of classical music and no formal choir.
The programme follows a group of 30 R&B-obsessed 15-year-olds selected to form the school's first-ever Phoenix Choir, as they struggle to achieve success under Gareth's expert direction.
"Northolt is typical of hundreds of secondary schools across the UK," said Gareth. "It's an ordinary comprehensive, with kids from all sorts of backgrounds.
"When I arrived I was shocked by the standard of singing," he continued. "This was yet another secondary school that had forgotten how to sing. When I was at school I sang every day but here there was no assembly singing, no choir, no orchestra, no folksongs and certainly no classical music."
The children, all who had never sung properly before, had just seven rehearsals before recording an entry CD for the games.
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"At first the choir were terrified to make a sound," Gareth explained. "They would happily talk, but sing? No. Not above the sound made by a small kitten."
To get the "lions' roar" needed, Gareth resorted to drastic measures. A trip to London's Barbican Centre was the first turning point: "When I put them on that vast stage to perform solos, what I'd previously seen as a bad attitude revealed itself as blind terror," he said.
"One 15-year-old, Chloe Sullivan, had been so afraid of failing that she had almost stopped trying but, gradually, she and others began to open up."
Filming started in the winter term of 2005 and maintaining the pupil's interest was a big challenge for the experimental choirmaster.
"The cold winter months of early 2006 were awful," he admitted. "It felt as though I was cruel and was torturing the kids with classical music. They were resistant to everything.
"I struggled to keep the momentum as we waited for the result of our application for China.
"I despaired of their commitment as the novelty wore off - misery infected everyone and that was pretty hard to take."
Despite the difficulties, the children involved grew with confidence, something which Gareth says was "a real highlight".
"I was nervous that I would fall flat on my face," said Gareth. "But some of them really began to love the music.
"All of them learnt a lot about singing and they learnt how to be a team - how to support each other and how to be patient when others are struggling.
"That, to me, was worth all the effort."