Gareth Malone

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Gareth Lawrence Malone (born 1975) is a musician, choirmaster, and documentary maker.

He was born in Bournemouth and attended local schools [1].

Having studied drama at the University of East Anglia, and singing at the Royal Academy of Music with Janice Chapman and Jonathan Papp, Malone now combines his singing career with education work. He was the Edward Heath Assistant Animateur to the London Symphony Orchestra’s Discovery programme for two years and now runs their two choirs, the Community Choir and Youth Choir.

[edit] BBC TV "The Choir" documentary series

He is most famous for the BBC 2's The Choir documentaries. In the 2006 series ". . . Gareth Malone tried to take a choir to the World Choir Games in China from a school (Northolt High School) that had never had a choir before. He did it in nine months." [2]. The 2008 series of four programmes showed the progress of Gareth's choirs at a school in Leicester, the Lancaster School [3] where people thought "Boys don't sing" (the series subtitle), ending with a performance at the Royal Albert Hall, after two terms of very hard work [4]. The series won a BAFTA award in 2007 for "Best Feature" [5]. He was interviewed about the series by The Independent newpaper [6]. The series was produced by Twenty Twenty Television [7].

[edit] Highlights

Recent highlights of his career include a family concert for City of London Sinfonia, Choir Master for New London Children’s Choir for Mahler 8 under Daniele Gatti (RPO), working as assistant conductor, preparing a chorus of professional music theatre singers for Marin Alsop on Bernstein’s Mass (LSO), singing the Evangelist in Bach’s St John Passion at Bristol Cathedral, singing under the composer in Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man (BBC Concert Orchestra), performing a new work as part of the Peter Maxwell-Davis Festival for the Royal Academy of Music and the South Bank Centre, Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings and Discover Schumann (LSO Discovery Lunchtime concerts), The Wigmore Hall Lieder Project 2005 and LSO Youth Choir with the LSO and Dave Brubeck at Christmas 2005.

He continues to work for, amongst others, the Royal Opera House, the Philharmonia, English National Opera Baylis programme and Glyndebourne.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Bournemouth Echo article "Choirmaster of the Universe…" by Emma Joseph, Thursday 7th December 2006.
  2. ^ BBC TV programme note.
  3. ^ The Lancaster School, Music Department page.
  4. ^ Radio Times, 22 February 2008.
  5. ^ BBC Press release.
  6. ^ "Gareth Malone: Note perfect" by Deborah Ross , 15 March 2008
  7. ^ Twenty Twenty TV article about "The Choir".