Choir: Gareth Malone - Gareth Malone

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as nails …

      It had been a brilliant idea to aim for the Phoenix Choir to compete in the World Choir Games – a very creative and very televisual decision by Ana DeMoraes to set an overly ambitious goal. It was a real game-changer, and it seemed to be perfect timing. You couldn’t open a paper in 2006 without reading about China, about the coming Olympics in Beijing, about what an amazing, emerging economy China was and how the country would be the dominant force in the century.

      I had sent the application off in early January, crossing my fingers as I dropped it into a post box somewhere near the school after a late rehearsal. I genuinely didn’t know if we would be allowed into the competition. As part of the application we had to supply a photo of the choir. A couple of them were embarrassed that it was shot by the basketball courts and we looked quite scruffy, but in fact I felt that sent out a strong message to the Choir Games organisers about who the choir were, that the Phoenix Choir was not a bunch of chorally educated kids, just regular kids who had decided to sing.

      The Choir Games rules meant I also had to decide on our repertoire for the competition at the time of the application. There were a number of constraints: there had to be pieces in a foreign language, from before the twentieth century, and only one free choice. The programme I had chosen included Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, Fauré’s ‘Cantique de Jean Racine’, ‘Fairest Isle’ by Purcell, and Stevie Wonder’s ‘Isn’t She Lovely?’. I was creating this for a choir who at the time could not sing in parts very effectively, where I didn’t have enough guys for the tenor and bass parts, so it was no mean feat to try and find pieces I thought they might be able to sing six months down the line.

      I remember several people who watched the programme thought that it was a forgone conclusion. Surely with the might of the BBC the choir would be a shoo-in? Well if it was, nobody told me and I had a nervous wait with the rest of the choir while our application was processed.

      I honestly didn’t open the letter which told us the result until I was with the choir. Watching it back now, I can see genuine relief on my face. I shot a glance off-camera to the production team. If they’d known already, they did a bloody good job of keeping it from us. Besides, it wouldn’t have been the same if I’d already known and the choir didn’t: we had to go through the experience together.

      The choir had been accepted and we all felt exhilarated. It was around this time, however, that we realised there was a second round to try and get through to. That was when it got competitive.

      Inevitably we had a few bumps along the road to China. One that completely caught me unawares was when Josh and his sister Ashley told me they could sing nothing of a religious nature because they were Jehovah’s Witnesses. This was tricky because in the programme I had already submitted, the ‘Cantique de Jean Racine’ was based on a Matins hymn, and the Purcell piece was about the goddess Venus. I did point out that Venus was from antiquity and that as far as I knew no one worships her any more, that it was a myth, a legend – but they’re weren’t having any of it. They were being extra-careful. They had suddenly realised that they were about to be singing very publicly indeed and, as Jehovah’s Witnesses, wanted to err on the side of caution because they have strict ideas about what is and isn’t acceptable singing material.

      I spoke to some colleagues who taught singing and asked them what my options were. They all said, there is nothing you can do. In the event, Josh decided to quit long before the China trip, not because of the religious issue but because, as he put it so damningly, it was ‘getting a bit long’. However Ashley chose to stay, but not to sing the two religious songs. I was an alto down for my two most difficult pieces, but it wouldn’t have been fair to Ashley to force the issue.

      Another rocky moment was when we made the decision to re-audition the entire choir. A few of the singers – and it was definitely a minority – seemed to be taking part for the wrong reasons. This manifested itself in their general attitude to the rehearsals: they were not turning up or, if they did, quite frankly not putting in much effort. I remember another chorister called Ashley (this one a boy) saying, ‘I am in it for the China …’ Any teacher knows that this attitude can be toxic in a group. I did my very best to encourage him to have a more positive attitude but, alas, he floated away from us.

      What I had not predicted was the appeal of appearing on television. Not only had it enthused 160 auditionees, but many of those who were in the choir were only there so that they could have their five minutes of fame. But this was not the ‘low budget X-Factor’ they thought it was – this was real, it was hard work. They were learning to become a choir. Some of them didn’t care and I knew it.

      So it felt morally right to me to make sure, on behalf of the ones who really were pulling their weight, that everyone deserved and justified their place on the plane. I was quite prepared to be flexible about the standard if I felt that the effort was there: Enock Chege, for example, who had originally been one of my five reserves, was not fantastic when he re-auditioned, but I felt I wanted to have him on the trip because he was so enthusiastic and positive about the challenge. At the very first audition he said he was going to give it ‘my best voice, my best concentration.’ And he did.

      The re-auditioning process was a tough sell to the school, who preferred a more broad-access policy. They felt I should have got it right the first time (as did many people who wrote to me afterwards). How could I? How could I have known, based on a five-minute audition, who would prove to have the stamina? I suppose that’s the kind of background I’m from: if you don’t put the effort in, you don’t get the rewards. I had to be ruthless.

      Some didn’t make it in because musically they had failed to get hold of the notes. Raul, for example, continued to struggle and it was becoming obvious to the rest of the choir that he couldn’t sing the parts. These were awful decisions. But this was the situation I found myself in and I was determined to make the best of it.

      The contrast between those who were committed and those who had lost interest was most marked between Ahmed and Jack. At the 11th hour and after months of me badgering him Ahmed said he was only doing it for his parents. Jack was understandably as completely gobsmacked as I was. He looked at Ahmed in disbelief. ‘I really, really want to go,’ he said, and he meant it. I felt Jack’s attitude was to be rewarded, whereas to be involved in this fantastic opportunity because you thought you could please your parents seemed to me a completely misguided reason. You can’t sing for your parents, you have to sing for yourself. I didn’t want a choir full of conscripts. I wanted it to be full of kids who really desperately wanted to be in it. Crucially, because his heart wasn’t in it Ahmed hadn’t learnt the music. Exit Ahmed.

      But some of them really cared. When Kodi Bramble walked out and slammed the door – smashing the glass, by the way – he did so because of simmering tensions in the choir between the different sections: the altos were finding it easy, but the tenors were often a man or two down and finding the parts a challenge. Kodi, however, was highly musical and wanted to get it right. He is now a professional rock drummer, with tattoos to match, but he had a pleasant tenor voice and a damn good ear. I’m not sure how much he appreciated his nickname of ‘door slammer Kodi’.

      At one rehearsal, as time was running out, I lost it in front of the choir. They were not focusing, they were messing around. ‘Excuse me!’ I yelled. ‘That is the only time you will hear me shout. You are being utterly discourteous. One more time and I will walk out.’ It was classic denial behaviour: there was so much at stake and yet they were merrily wasting time. They needed to be reminded of what they’d agreed to. It brought them up sharp.

      Rhonda had doubted that I had it in me: ‘At our school you needed to be tough with people,’ she said to me with a worldly air. ‘I didn’t know if you would be able to be tough with anyone. And maybe it would be a bit of an easy ride.’ They underestimated me. I have a touch of steel behind the mild-mannered exterior. Fundamentally I knew what the pressure would be like in China, and from necessity I transferred some of that pressure onto them.

      By July we were as ready as we were ever going to be. The kids had designed a uniform: the male outfits were Mandarin-influenced, while the girls had dresses of which even the sartorially picky Chloe

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