4,500 singers: 2 performances of Handel’s Messiah: 1 Royal Albert Hall

SOUTH KENSINGTON, U.K. - Nov. 19, 2013 - PRLog -- In the afternoon 1,000 young singers take part in the very first Scratch^® Youth Messiah as The Really Big Youth Chorus, with professional orchestra and soloists, conducted by Suzi Digby OBE.

In the evening, the world’s most celebrated choral participation event, Messiah from Scratch^® has its 39^th performance with over 3,500 singers with The Really Big Chorus Principal Conductor, Brian Kay.


The Scratch^® Youth Messiah seeks to encourage young people to perform Handel’s much-loved work in its full SATB version, and is promoted by Scratch Concerts Ltd alongside Messiah from Scratch^®  which has been an annual pre-Christmas fixture at the RAH since 1974. To encourage young singers to join in regardless of their level of experience, choirs participating in The Scratch^® Youth Messiah can sing as few as three choruses, or as many as eleven. We are delighted that over half the choirs joining The Really Big Youth Chorus on 1 December have chosen to learn everything.  ‘Youth Messiah Mentors’ from both the National Youth Choir of Great Britain and the London Youth Choir will provide vocal support to encourage the least experienced singers.

Messiah from Scratch^® has no rehearsal and is just an adrenaline-filled, electrifying performance.

The Scratch^® Youth Messiah kicks off at 14h15 and the evening performance of Messiah from Scratch^® with The Really Big Chorus will be at 19h00. The English Festival Orchestra accompanies, with soloists Daisy Brown (soprano), Rosemary Clifford (mezzo-soprano), Oliver Johnston (tenor) and Gareth Brynmor John (baritone).

ENDS

Notes for editors

www.trbc.co.uk

www.youthmessiah.co.uk

Twitter @ReallyBigChorus @Youth_Messiah

The Scratch® Youth Messiah starts at 14h15 on Sunday 1 December at the Royal Albert Hall. Youth choirs will rehearse in the Hall from 11h30.

Messiah from Scratch® starts at 19h00.

Suzi Digby OBE has worked internationally with choirs for many years, and has been at the vanguard of the revival of singing in schools and among young people in the UK. She is creator of The Voices Foundation (the UK’s leading National Primary Music Education Foundation), of Vocal Futures, and co-founder (with Rachel Staunton), of the London Youth Choir. She is passionate about building the next generation of singers and works tirelessly all over the world to achieve her ambitions, with numerous television and radio appearances testifying to her enthusiasm and commitment in this vital area of education. She received the OBE from HM The Queen in 2009 for outstanding services to music education. www.suzidigby.com

As well as his voice being known to tens of thousands of music lovers through his many presentations for BBC radio, Brian Kay is conductor of Vaughan Williams’ Leith Hill Musical Festival in Surrey, and of the Burford Singers near to his home in the Cotswolds. He was previously chorus-master of the Huddersfield Choral Society and he frequently guest-conducts choirs and orchestras in many parts of the country. Further afield, in New Zealand he has conducted the Orpheus Choir of Wellington and the Auckland Choral Society, and in Sheffield, Massachusetts, the Berkshire Choral Festival. He is Vice President of the Association of British Choral Directors and of the Royal School of Church Music.

The Really Big Chorus is the UK’s largest choral society with around 12,000 singing members. It began life in 1974 when Canadian Don Monro, then a student at Imperial College, joined with fellow scientists to hire the Royal Albert Hall and fill it will amateur singers for the very first performance of Messiah from Scratch®. Other RAH concerts in May and July (‘the last night before the Proms’) have rehearsals on the day, and TRBC also organises singing breaks to prestige overseas venues, and relaxing choral cruises.