A year at King's - A year inside the Choir of King's College, Cambridge | BBC One 14.12.2018

[Music] inside King's College Chapel in Cambridge the choir is rehearsing for a service that for many sickens the start of Christmas broadcast on radio live to millions across the globe the festival of nine Lessons and Carols is approaching its centenary [Music] our cameras have been given privileged access to the choir and a front-row seat for the highlights of this anniversary year meets the choristers and porn scholars discover why King's College Choir has become such a national treasure and just what makes it one of the best in the world it's approaching 3 o'clock on Christmas Eve 2017 inside King's College Chapel people are taking their seats for the annual festival of nine Lessons and Carols they together with listeners around the world will soon hear the sound of a lone chorister sing the first verse of the opening Carol once in royal David's City [Music] this is BBC Radio 4 and now we go live to the chapel of King's College Cambridge for a festival of nine Lessons and Carols and for the first time our cameras have been allowed in to capture the moment that chorister steps forward but only one man knows who that will be what lies behind it is that the idea that if you nominate a chorus a week or two weeks beforehand he's got quite a lot of time to get wound up about it which we don't want to happen and moreover even if you do that that particular one might wake up on Christmas Eve with a sore throat and it's really down to who's in the best voice on Christmas Eve I make the selection in my mind as a result of that and then that's communicated to the chosen one just as we go on here there's this moment of complete silence in the chapel where mr. Cleary is listening with his headphones to the presenters and you can hear your own heartbeat but that's the point where you get most nervous go [Music] when mr. Cleary pointed at me to do the solo I was it all kind of emotions came at one point and it was just all kind of unreal once you were pointed out it's very very quick and once you realize you're doing it it's done but I was very conscious of the fact that loads and loads of people were listening to me doing it and that was quite scary [Music] so begins a festival of nine Lessons and Carols a service that 100 years on has hardly changed and for the choir of King's College Cambridge it has brought Fame and prestige with that has come more work and more pressure once the holidays are over another hectic year will begin [Music] it's early morning and a king's college school while most pupils are attending assembly the choristers are gathered for their daily rehearsal jack is in year 7 he's been following Stephen CLE Brees directions since he joined the choir aged 9 yeah good that was lovely when you join the arpeggio that was really good yeah he's an interesting man he's been teaching for a long time he has quite a different style as all the teachers at school because he's quite old-fashioned in his teachings well he makes us sit up and he gets quite annoyed does if we don't sit up [Music] rehearsal over it's then a normal school day look Matthew you might know this one because it's quite fee there are four hundred pupils at the school aged between 4 and 13 unlike most of the pupils the choristers are all borders both big deal boarding allows an independence which very much fuels the independence that you are expecting of the musician a child needs to still be a child but to balance it with that sense of sort of responsibility and commitment and rigor internal rigor and I think boarding plays a part in developing that if that day is the first female head at the school she also holds the ancient title master over the choristers responsible for the boys education and health we do teach them to look after their voices it is part of having a very good diet it is part of having sufficient sleep as it would be for any athlete a singer is an athlete it's it's an athlete of the vocal cords five days each week the choir sings even song [Music] today is a special service for the choristers as their parents and siblings are in the congregation the parents always queue in a different line to the public so they get in first and as reserved seats for them so where you can see the whole choir so you couldn't see your son singing so when my parents come it is nothing because they live so far away it's a really good feeling because I know they're really proud of me [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] singing in Chapel it's quite an amazing experience we're learning music every rehearsal we always rehearse the mag the canticles the anthem the Introit in the song the cool new scholars are all undergraduates at Cambridge [Applause] jozu bear is in his first year at Kings reading music the workload the academic workload is is the same it's just that there's less time in which to do the work but I actually think that being in the choir doesn't have a negative impact on the ability to do work I think that having the extra commitment of being in the choir focuses you more because he's got less time in which to do it so you have to be more organized about it not all choral scholars study music I chose to study philosophy because whilst I've always been very interested in the performance side of music I didn't really think academic music at university was the subject for me also it might have been a bit of a musical overload if I was studying it and singing in the choir every day the music and choir of King's College Cambridge represent the best of the English choral tradition as far back as the turn of the last century the choir was considered one of the greatest in the land but it was the start of putting church services on BBC radio in the 1920s that changed the choirs fortune the first broadcast of the festival of nine Lessons and Carols was in 1928 David Briggs now a hundred and one was both a Kings chorister and later choral scholar he took part in that first radio transmission the significance of the occasion seemed of only minor interest to the boys as he told his daughter Anakin's all I remember is mr. Anderson he used to cover year after year but he he just bought some sort of suitcase full of bits and pieces and put it in the corner of the first tree right and fiddled around with them yeah then off we went and he was the only technician he was the only one I know that whenever you're talking about this other choristers will say to you did you sing the solo the ones that rolled solo because you were head chorister weren't even commercially and they can't believe when you say you don't you can't remember I really don't know I don't remember at all because it wasn't significant at all I don't I feel special right [Music] it's a long hot summer and back at school jack is in his element well quick it's just a brilliant sport I could play it all day I'd happily play five days test match I logged B I just William I don't know why I like B I just really enjoy it in addition to the full-time choristers the boarding house is also home to a small number of probationers these younger singers replace the boys who will leave the choir each year it's very much a gradual process it's a probationary period they do board during the week so it's it's effectively weeknight boarding they do do the morning rehearsals they sometimes work in the afternoons the children are not going to be asked to be singing in main services they're not going to be exposed in that way the boy has come from a variety of backgrounds meet Vladimir who arrived at the school in autumn 2017 I was just scared when I came to this school because I didn't know anything much when I came in the winter term it was just everything just was like a jigsaw puzzle and just fits it in Vladimir was born in Romania but his family then moved to England in search of a better life the turning point for Vladimir came when his mum took him to a concert at King's College Chapel she brought me to st. Matthew's passion in 2017 at Eastern Kings and it took about three hours at the end of it I I was like mama can you bring me to this audition because I want to be in this choir I just wanted to see if this is just the magical of the magic of the concert something that he really wants to do because you know it would have been a big change for us but for Lara Mia this was no passing whim I just wrote an email to the choir the choir replied within the next two hours they said come for the informal meeting with mr. creo worried so I went to mr. Cleary's office and he asked me how loud can you sing how quiet Lenny saying how high can you sing how low can you sing and when that was done my mum came into the room mr. Cleary said to her this is the right place you have bought your Charles to the right Squire Vladimir then auditioned and just two months after he'd first heard the choir sing in the chapel he was accepted as a probationer we miss him terribly but it is a great opportunity for him and we appreciate this and it was his desire to be here [Music] for the choral scholars it's time to swap the sacred for the secular under the name the King's Men the scholars perform on pumps each June the men rehearse in the afternoon well this is the same program that the King's Men sings throughout the whole year and it's chosen at the beginning of the year and then we practice it and rehearse it throughout the year and at Easter we had our Kings mentors around the UK and so it kind of all builds up to this concert at the end of the year so this is kind of our biggest audience and one of our most special concerts we we get a with that way around I think [Applause] [Music] you're going to Scarborough [Music] Joe's mother Claire has traveled over from Belfast for the performance he always sang from he was a tiny tiny tot he was able to sing when he was ready a team unsold [Music] he developed such a love such a passion for singing that he did want to go to a fire school and wanted to be able to sing a lot more and I think he saw his future in England at least possibly further afield so he looked into going to sick form school in England and he ended up in Winchester [Music] two women gossiping to each other how good their husband is up his accent is very different when he's over here when he gets home it changes very quickly because we pretend we don't understand his english accent singing in a smaller group provides a chance for the men to show off their individual talents in choir there are loads of great solos that come up but also in King's Men we often have the opportunity to sing big solos or in sort of small quartets and things like that which gives you maybe the opportunity to show your personality a bit more because you're not trying to blend with everyone else and you can yeah sing a bit more soloistic Lee James's parents Judith and John are in the audience he felt proud of him I suppose over the years we've got used to him doing so much singing it's become a fun way of life in some ways yeah but it's always proud when it is gone and I was always very nervous it seemed conditions well you seem to enjoy doing it that was the main thing we we weren't pushing him just facilitating the realization of his talent and ambition the concert and the evening go without a hitch almost the most difficult moment of the whole evening was a first stepping on to the pumps to discover that they weren't properly fastened together one of the guys said I was okay you know just travel the two of them put one leg in one and one leg in the other ended up doing the splits yeah I noticed that a bit of it yeah have you got affected Saracen yeah and it all led okay oh yeah yeah [Music] [Applause] [Music] tonight I thought was really fabulous a really fitting end to a very very busy first year and the hundreds of people that were here absolutely loved it what you saw at the end you got Starling movie yeah it's really amazing yeah with nice feeling in July the choir is called to Chapel for its latest recording session [Music] [Applause] first off atoms form composed by Richard Elvin Jones and performed by the choir on Christmas Eve in 2017 it's for a special hundredth anniversary album featuring music from the archives as well as new recordings we're very lucky in that this Chapel is our home and it has one of the most amazing acoustics in the world so there's absolutely no reason why we would leave here to go to a studio yes we have to deal with a bit of traffic noise outside the bells that chime every hour but it is the best place to record for this coin it's what the choir is known for yes what I was going to suggest I just wonder whether the boys are sitting slightly at four four four yeah might be worth okay HP's is broken down into sections and maybe reworked we can't do what we call patch a little moment perhaps it's a really difficult bit that it would just be nice to get a really short run into so during the session this afternoon there was one Bart that's we Steven and I just wanted to do in isolation and then we can slot that in a bit later [Music] it's probationer Vladimir's first recording session with the choir it's sometimes quite hard when you have to stand up for one hour and then have a sit down for one minute and then we're back up for another hour and then have a tiny break and then come back these recording sessions are the hardest the choir works I think because they are aiming for 100 percent they is a three hour session they get a 15 minute break they love doing it because they at the end of it they come away with a brilliant memento it's something they can keep the rest of their lives and it's the way that millions of people around the world can listen to them on on these on these things so that's my telephone one second hello Steven yes I'll be with you in 20 seconds all right thanks sorry I'm afraid I'm being called away it was yeah yeah a new academic year has started and in the choir there are some fresh faces [Music] Vladimir together with his fellow probationers was inducted into the choir in a special service in September singing the anthem which on the day was a bell for Gardiner which was a really good piece and I was really happy so I cried out of joy afterwards they received that top hat we got the top hat in the vestry and it was in a bag and when we saw the bag we were really excited we were like oh yes we're getting our top hats [Music] these will be the last new choristers that Stephen Cleary will welcome to the choir as he's retiring in the summer of 2019 at this stage in the year I'm actually pleased with the sound the boys are making it's a good strong sound of course always at the beginning of the year there's a question of rebuilding a degree of confidence and sure-footedness but I think that's going well too so I'm feeling we're in a good place it's really fun in the boys doors because when you're focused on you really feel part of it we always look at the conductor especially when there's a new passage because we don't want to come in late in the run-up to Christmas the choir must prepare for the TV recording of the festival service called carols from Kings it's been broadcast annually ever since the opportunity has been taken to introduce non scriptural readings so there might be a piece of literature or more often a poem and that's given us a little bit more scope to vary what we do but they are two distinct programs radio is live on Christmas Eve television is pre-recorded in mid-december [Music] and so once again this Christmas Eve a global congregation will tune in for the festival of nine Lessons and Carols on the radio and watch carols from kings on television I think we always want to do the best possible job we can and for for our own sakes but also because we know so many people are listening but this year there's an added pressure in a way because we want to do the best possible job we can for Steven because obviously he's been doing it so long and we want to make his final nine Lessons and Carols and as special as possible this is my last festival of myosins and cows and it's going to be a memory that I never forget and I can't wait to make this one and it's also mr. Clair Barry's last service and it will be a bit emotional I'm looking forward to that I'm going to be singing with my friends on Christmas Eve in one of the most nicest chapel in the world I'm also happy for new beginnings on the next term what an extraordinary experience it is you're a child who is living a sound that lifts the spirits of the world who listens there is no stronger power in a child's worse than the power to change the way people think that's be posting [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Choirs on TV

Views: 430,333

Rating: 4.9042535 out of 5

Keywords: A year at King's, Choir of King's College cambridge, documentary choir of king's college cambridge, A year inside the Choir of King's College cambridge

Id: OBNQz6cruSY

Length: 29min 7sec (1747 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 19 2019