Gareth Malone’s choir will be all white on the night

 
18 November 2013

Gareth Malone formed his new Voices choir after placing a web appeal for young performers to join a “ground-breaking singing group”. But the nation’s favourite choirmaster admits to the Londoner a glaring failure among his hand-picked 17 singers — the absence of black and ethnic minority choristers among a group whose repertoire features rap and R&B tracks.

“A choir like this has to be a meritocracy,” insists Malone, who says he was unable to find black singers with sufficient musical chops to perform songs including Alicia Keys’s Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart.

“It does feel a little bit white. I noticed that. But the call went out and they didn’t come,” he says. “You can’t be letting people in who don’t sight-read because that’s an essential part of it. You can’t let people in who don’t have some choral experience wherever you get it from, a youth choir.

“I didn’t want people who sing in that X Factor style. Most of them said it was the hardest audition they’d ever done. Music should be colour-blind, really.”

Listeners can judge for themselves when the Voices choir, including Londoners Jenni Harper and Harriet Syndercombe Court, release their album today.

The BBC star hasn’t ruled out adding black singers when he takes his choir on tour next year. “It’s something I’d like to pursue further. If they’re out there, I’d love to hear them.”

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