Episode #1.2 - Production & Contact Info (original) (raw)

Gareth has sent in the submission CD to the World Choir Games selection committee, and the choristers, after the Christmas break, have returned to school for the start of the spring term. After viewing the World Choir Games website and ...See moreGareth has sent in the submission CD to the World Choir Games selection committee, and the choristers, after the Christmas break, have returned to school for the start of the spring term. After viewing the World Choir Games website and seeing the choirs that have sent in applications, Gareth notices both that the Phoenix Choir, in his words, seem "out of their league", and that there is no mention whatsoever when notification will be sent if they have been accepted. He also runs into a number of known and unexpected problems: some students, for religious reasons, cannot sing Christian or mythologically related songs (on which most classical music is based), there is some attrition especially among the crucial bass clef voices, and the bass clef sections are neither vocally strong or confident. With the latter, Gareth realizes he has to go on a direct recruitment process in the hope of finding the bass clef "diamonds in the rough" at the school. After that process, he also comes to the realization that he will have to go through another full audition process of existing choristers to whittle the thirty-eight down to the maximum twenty-five, plus four alternates, and do it sooner than later. Even with the new deeper voices added, the first classical piece they are learning is just not coming together as Gareth would like, and as such he decides to take a slightly different approach by bringing in opera singing friends for support to show how classically trained voices can sing both classical and popular music. Two envelopes finally arrive through the post: the Chege family learn if their husband/father has received his visa to enter the UK, and the choir learn if they have made it to the World Choir Games. But even more scary than these two envelopes is news from Gareth: the choir is scheduled to give their first public performance to the less than friendly fifth formers, who are known to mock and ridicule for its own sake. Written by Huggo See less