By Amy Langdown
July 2018 will see the 123rd installment of the prestigious BBC Proms event take place at the Royal Albert Hall. The event will take place from the 13th of July - 8th September and will be broadcast nationwide throughout that time, both on television and radio, as well as on the BBC’s website.
July 2018 will see the 123rd installment of the prestigious BBC Proms event take place at the Royal Albert Hall. The event will take place from the 13th of July - 8th September and will be broadcast nationwide throughout that time, both on television and radio, as well as on the BBC’s website.
The 2018 BBC Proms, this year, was host to the BBC Proms Youth choirs, made up of singers from the University of Birmingham Voices, the University of Aberdeen Chamber Choir, the Proms Experienced Youth Choir and the Proms Youth Choir Academy. This year the Proms Experienced Youth Choir and the Proms Youth Choir Academy were based in the North East, with rehearsals taking place at the Sage Gateshead.
The Proms Experienced Youth Choir was ‘designed to bring together the best young singers from across the UK and create a massed youth choir with opportunities to perform at the highest level with professional symphony orchestras at the BBC proms’ and first launched in 2012. The Proms Youth Choir Academy was launched in 2017 with an aim to ‘discover new voices from all musical backgrounds and develop them in a choral setting’, meaning that even singers less experienced with sheet music and classical music can become involved with Proms and gain new skills and experiences from this. Three students from Cramlington Learning Village took part in the prestigious event this year: Lindsay Booth (Now in University) and Amy Langdown (Year 12) took part as members of the Proms Experienced Youth Choir, and Nathan Crispin (now in university) as a member of the Proms Youth Choir Academy.
The choir leader of the Proms Experienced Youth Choir was the highly esteemed choral director Matt Beckingham, who also leads the Sage Gateshead’s Young Musicians Programme Choir, ‘Quay Voices’, which Amy Langdown and Lindsay Booth are also a part of. The Choir leader of the Academy choir was (also highly esteemed choral director) Grace Rossiter.
The BBC Proms Youth Choirs was this year featured in ‘Proms 9: War and Peace’, which in is honour of the centenary year of the end of the First World War. The youth choirs this year were led by arguably one of the top current choral directors: Simon Halsey.
The first piece performed in the concert was a newly composed work, inspired by the First World War and conducted by Simon Halsey. The piece is entitled ‘A Shadow’ and was commissioned specifically for the ‘War and Peace’ event. It was written by Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds, who is arguably one of the biggest current composers in the world. The Proms Youth choirs will perform ‘A Shadow’ mainly acapella, with minimum instrumental input as was written. However in the final part, metallophones/Campanelli joined the singers as they perform the final minute of the piece.
Next, Britten’s ‘Sinfonia da Requiemadds’, written after the Second World War, was performed by the World Orchestra for Peace. The piece was intended to be a warning against war as it is a very emotive piece of classical music.
Finally, conducted by Donald Runnicles , the World Orchestra for Peace (known worldwide for being an ‘expression of international musical harmony’) performed Beethoven’s 9th symphony (also known as ‘Ode to Joy’) alongside four soloists (Judit Kutadi, mezzo-soprano, Franz-Josef Selig, baritone, Russell Thomas, tenor and Erin Wall, soprano) and the youth choirs, as it is perhaps recognised as the most poignant representation of the ‘brotherhood of man’ in all classical music; including lines such as ‘ all men become brothers’. It is known throughout history to have been used in many instances of reconciliation; including after the First World War and the falling of the Berlin Wall, in which the orchestra from one side and choir from the other joined to perform the piece after years of separation from one another.
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