NATIONAL YOUTH CHOIR EASTER COURSE

Our National Youth Choirs of Great Britain singers enjoyed a five-day online course.

360 children attended the course, ages 9-15, with members from across the UK who make up the joint Girls’ and Boys’ choirs of NYCGB. The NYCGB courses offer some of the finest choral & musical training anywhere in the world to talented young singers, with a view to giving them a unique, first-rate, and diverse musical experience.

Mornings started with warms up, dancercise, and musicianship, afternoons included singing sessions with special guests including a West End actress, Ken Burton, Lucy Joy Morris, and creative sessions with guests such as Gareth Malone, SK Shlomo, ‘Beat goes on’ and Ben Parry.

Tom M has kindly written an account;

During the Easter holiday, Justin Y, Alex B, Luca M, Jaiden M, Freddie R and I participated in the National Youth Choir Easter Course. We all had such a great time and here are some of my favourite sessions. 

On our first day of five, after a slightly later start due to it being Easter Monday, we had SK Shlomo, a professional beatboxer who taught us many skills and techniques on how to beatbox. In the final performance, we performed a piece written by SK Shlomo which included singing and beatboxing. This was one of the best parts and was popular amongst all 500 participants on the zoom call. 

Towards the end of the second day, we looked at film music with Ben Parry, a musical director, who showed us the effects of music in films. For example, in many happy movie scenes, where the music gives an exciting feeling which exaggerates the mood in the movie. 

From all the boys in St John’s who took part, I would like to say thank you to all the staff on the course for giving us such a great opportunity. We can’t wait for the summer course, which will hopefully be in person.