08 July 2010

Real-Life GLEE club, THE CHOIR, Premieres on BBC America

The Choir from BBC
Can't wait till Glee returns? This new program that's premiering tonight on BBC America could fill the space up, while waiting for September.

The series is called, The Choir, and it's a reality show where an actual music teacher, Gareth Malone, does his best to inspire high school kids to find their potentials as singers. Malone works in an underprivileged public school where there is no budget for a Glee club (sounds familiar right?) and he manages to organize one and turn them into this top-notch singing group that will probably give the actors and stars on Glee a run for their money.

"On all the projects I’ve done, we’re looking for places that need a lift, not necessarily the most difficult places in the world, but places that need something. So we were looking for areas that have some degree of social deprivation, some lack of money and lack of aspiration, really, and certainly NO choirs. There are loads of choirs in Britain, but in certain places people just feel it’s not for them.”

At first everyone at school was leery of this denizen among them. “There’s so much prejudice against choirs because people think it’s rather rarefied and a bit stuffy and old-fashioned,” he said. “But once they’ve done it they appreciate what you get from it and how difficult and how complicated it is. And they watch other choirs with more respect.”

Malone’s biggest difficulty was finding boys who were willing to trade soccer practice for chorus rehearsals.   ---- Read complete story here.
Watch and listen to Mr. Malone's kids: