On tour with the National Youth Choir

I spent the first two-and-a-half weeks of August singing. Well, not constantly, but almost. Now, this was not just a very long rave, although I certainly did have a lot of fun. No, this was perfectionist music making with the National Youth Choir (‘NYC’ amongst friends) where singing a note with the wrong vowel placement was just as bad as singing the wrong note. I have been involved in this organisation for a long time now, but what was special about this course is that it was truly national. During our 19 days together as a choir of about a hundred, we explored York, Londonderry, Belfast, London, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Suffolk, performing in seven concerts. For our first few concerts, we combined forces with a couple of Irish choirs and the National Youth Orchestra to perform the monumental Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and the slightly-easier-to-sing Toward the Unknown Region by Vaughan Williams. We performed these both in Northern Ireland and in the BBC Proms at a packed Albert Hall. If these concerts were characterised by their energy and excitement, the next few concerts were all about intimacy and blend. Without the Irish choirs and with no orchestra, we were a much smaller group and we set about achieving our characteristic ‘NYC sound’. This abstract concept is one we are always trying to chase and we literally spend hours trying to reach this goal. It is not unknown for us to spend an hour or so just working on a couple of lines of music, but at the end it really is transformed. There was a lot of work, but plenty of play too. I recall with fondness a great evening at a funfair in Cardiff bay. Banter was abundant, both in our free time and in rehearsals, and there were far too many in-jokes to keep up with. I have no doubt that I shall remember the great time I had for many years to come.