The Choir

Gareth arrives at Northolt High School to begin the choir development process. Despite the school having no choral music tradition, he receives 161 applicants - 117 girls and 44 boys - from the approximately 1,300 member student body. He needs not only to find the 30 best singers, but sufficient numbers for each of the four parts, which becomes an issue especially for the bass clef voices as few of those boys applying have had their voice change. During the audition process, he discovers that many have beautiful voices, but at this stage of their vocal history are purely trying to mimic popular music singers and their songs, especially in the R&B genre. Before he announces the 30, he must check the status of a few which may dismiss them from the choir. After announcing the 30 members, who collectively are now called the Phoenix Choir, Gareth has a deadline in four week's time (seven rehearsals): record a submission CD to the World Choir Games selection committee. He has to get the choir to a point where the submission will impress him and the selection committee enough to be chosen to attend the competition in China seven months later. Beyond issues with learning the music, Gareth has problems with one perpetually absent choir member, and a brother and sister dealing with a family issue. To get the choir inspired and as a bonding exercise, Gareth takes them on a field trip to the Barbican Theatre in London to experience what it's like to stand on an auditorium stage to perform, and so that they can all spend some quality time getting to know each other.

Gareth has sent in the submission CD to the World Choir Games selection committee, and the choristers, after the Christmas break, have returned to school for the start of the spring term. After viewing the World Choir Games website and seeing the choirs that have sent in applications, Gareth notices both that the Phoenix Choir, in his words, seem "out of their league", and that there is no mention whatsoever when notification will be sent if they have been accepted. He also runs into a number of known and unexpected problems: some students, for religious reasons, cannot sing Christian or mythologically related songs (on which most classical music is based), there is some attrition especially among the crucial bass clef voices, and the bass clef sections are neither vocally strong or confident. With the latter, Gareth realizes he has to go on a direct recruitment process in the hope of finding the bass clef "diamonds in the rough" at the school. After that process, he also comes to the realization that he will have to go through another full audition process of existing choristers to whittle the thirty-eight down to the maximum twenty-five, plus four alternates, and do it sooner than later. Even with the new deeper voices added, the first classical piece they are learning is just not coming together as Gareth would like, and as such he decides to take a slightly different approach by bringing in opera singing friends for support to show how classically trained voices can sing both classical and popular music. Two envelopes finally arrive through the post: the Chege family learn if their husband/father has received his visa to enter the UK, and the choir learn if they have made it to the World Choir Games. But even more scary than these two envelopes is news from Gareth: the choir is scheduled to give their first public performance to the less than friendly fifth formers, who are known to mock and ridicule for its own sake.

Now that the choir has received notice that they have qualified to compete in the World Choir Games - the first British school ever, and one of only fifteen choirs worldwide in their mixed youth choir category - they are coming to terms with the immense task ahead of them. On the fun side, the choir strikes a small committee to design their competition wardrobe. Their new look cannot however mask the problems the choir still faces. Their non-English language song is giving them problems. And the tenors, even two weeks prior to them leaving for China, are holding the choir back. The frayed nerves from the tenor section issue threaten to destroy the choir. One week before they are scheduled to leave, Gareth takes the choir on a mystery team-building weekend to bring the choir back together as a cohesive unit. That weekend still cannot fix the fundamental vocal issue with the tenors. As such, Gareth feels he needs to reevaluate two tenors for the trip. Also one week before their departure, the choir holds one last performance for friends and family of their competition repertoire. In China, the choir is overwhelmed by the enormity of the event. After they perform, there is an outpouring of emotion about how they did - the culmination of the nine month process - the emotions regardless of if they make it into the medal round of competition or not.