Latest news with #GarethMalone
BBC News
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Choirmaster Gareth Malone to conduct 100 Latitude Festival-goers
Music fans at a major festival have been invited to join a celebrity choirmaster in a performance on the main Malone OBE previously organised a choir of 150 at Latitude at Henham Park near Southwold, Suffolk in year he will conduct 100 attendees on the final day of the festival, which is expected to welcome more than 40,000 people between 24 and 27 49-year-old, best known for appearing on BBC Two's The Choir, said returning to Latitude felt "incredibly special". He said: "I can't wait to work with a brand-new group of voices and create something extraordinary together. "This is truly a one-time-only performance - a celebration of unity, music, and the incredible atmosphere of Latitude."The choir, which will be created "entirely on-site", will be rehearsed over three days of the festival prior to the Sunday performance, starting with an initial meeting with Malone on Thursday, 24 July. The choirmaster has previously led acclaimed musical projects including the Military Wives Choir, whose debut single topped the UK charts, and the All Star Choir's Wake Me Up for BBC Children in Need. He was awarded an OBE in 2012 in recognition of his services to music and founder and managing director Melvin Benn said: "Gareth Malone's return to Latitude after a decade is something we are all eagerly anticipating. "His ability to bring people together through music is unparalleled and we know that this performance will be a highlight of the festival." Follow Suffolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
BBC News
17-04-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Easter on iPlayer and BBC TV
Looking for something to watch this Easter weekend? Whether you're seeking drama, entertainment or family fun, there's something for everyone on iPlayer. Here's just a selection of the Easter delights... Read more: BBC announces content for Easter and other key Faith Festivals as the Faith and Hope season returns for 2025 Pilgrimage: The Road Through the Alps Pilgrimage: The Road Through the Alps, follows celebrity pilgrims, as they take a personal journey along a revived medieval Catholic route, travelling from just outside Innsbruck on the Austrian Camino and finishing near Lake Zurich in Switzerland. Taking part in this physical and spiritual journey are; agnostic Jay McGuiness, singer from boy band, The Wanted; actor and comedy legend Helen Lederer who is from a mixed heritage background, with a culturally Jewish father and a Protestant mother; practising Catholic, Harry Clark - The Traitors (series two) winner; standup comedian Daliso Chaponda, who grew up in a Christian family but is exploring the Baha'i faith; presenter Jeff Brazier, who went to Catholic schools but now is spiritual and meditates as part of his everyday life; retired Paralympian and practising Christian Stef Reid and journalist Nelufar Hedayat, who refers to herself as a modern Muslim. Watch Pilgrimage: The Road Through the Alps on iPlayer and BBC Two from Sunday 20 April. Watch Pilgrimage on BBC iPlayer and add to your Watchlist More: Meet the Pilgrims of 2025 Gareth Malone's Messiah Gareth Malone coaches eight people with no experience of classical choral music to sing Handel's Messiah, alongside the world-class BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Chorus of Wales, at Cardiff's Llandaff Cathedral, in aid of BBC Children in Need. In the series he whittles down hundreds of applications to the chosen eight - Foo Seng, Nia, Harry, Rosie, Aaron, Ami-Louise, Naomi, and Richard. All eight have their own personal stories and motivations, including Naomi, who has been diagnosed with secondary breast cancer, and Richard, who recently lost his wife to the disease. Interwoven with the singing, the series sees Gareth dig deeper into the history of Messiah, its religious meaning and its place in British culture over many generations. He visits Halifax Choral Society which has performed the work annually for 206 consecutive years and meets early music expert Dr Hannah French at Handel's home in London's Mayfair. He also spends time with Cardiff vicar, Father Jarel Robinson-Brown, looking at artworks that help explain the theme of Handel's Messiah: the life of Christ. The two one-hour documentaries will broadcast on BBC One and BBC One Wales on the mornings of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The two-hour broadcast of the performance will be shown on the evening of Easter Sunday on BBC Two and BBC Two Wales. All three episodes of Gareth Malone's Messiah will be available to watch on BBC iPlayer. Easter Sunday Service A joyful celebration for Easter Sunday, broadcast live from the glorious setting of St Mary Redcliffe Church in Bristol. Led by the Rev Laura Verrall-Kelly, the traditional service features beautiful choral music and much-loved congregational hymns, including Jesus Christ Is Risen Today. The church choir is directed by Joe Cryan, and Canon Dan Tyndall gives the sermon. It's followed by Urbi et Orbi, live from Rome at 11am. On the 12th Easter of his pontificate, the Pope's Easter message and blessing is delivered live to the city and to the world. Petroc Trelawny sets the scene. Watch on iPlayer and BBC One from 10am on Sunday 20 April Doctor Who The Doctor's quest to get Belinda home takes the Tardis to Miami in 1952, where an abandoned cinema is hiding a terrifying secret. Can the Doctor uncover Lux's power? Watch Doctor Who on BBC iPlayer and BBC One on Saturday 19 April Watch Doctor Who on BBC iPlayer and add to your Watchlist More: Doctor Who season 2 - Everything you need to know Our Changing Planet Our Changing Planet is an ambitious natural history series exploring the issues facing the planet's most threatened ecosystems and meeting the scientists and local conservationists fighting to make a difference. This year, we follow efforts to protect and revive our dying rivers. Two ambitious river restoration projects are aiming to bring life back to the Klamath in northern California and the Seine in Paris, France. Watch Our Changing Planet on BBC iPlayer with new episodes from Sunday 20 April Read more: Liz Bonnin and Ade Adepitan discuss Restoring Our Rivers Bluey: The Sign Bluey's longest ever episode The Sign launches on CBeebies and BBC iPlayer on Good Friday (18 April). Even more families across the UK will have the opportunity to enjoy this warm, heartfelt and extra-long episode of Bluey over the Easter weekend. In the extended episode, the Heeler family home is up for sale and Bluey's unhappy. But Bluey's comforted when Calypso tells her a proverb about a farmer who trusts everything will turn out the way it's meant to be. The next day, the Heeler home is prepping for Frisky's wedding, but when it's revealed Rad is planning a move out west after the wedding, Frisky runs away. Now Bluey has to experience her own farmer's proverb. Bluey: The Sign is available on CBeebies and BBC iPlayer from Friday 18 April Watch Bluey on BBC iPlayer and add to your Watchlist Super Happy Magic Forest On Bank Holiday Monday, brand new episodes of fun-filled comedy quest adventure series Super Happy Magic Forest launch on CBBC and BBC iPlayer. The all-star voice cast are back, including Judi Love (Loose Women, Taskmaster), Julian Barrett (The Mighty Boosh, Moominvalley), Greg McHugh (Fresh Meat, Gary: Tank Commander), Spencer Jones (Ted Lasso), Jules De Jongh (Thomas & Friends, Lilybuds) and Oliver Chris (Rivals, The Crown). The series features five heroes united by their mutual love of questing, picnics and frolicking! From Monday 21 April new episodes will be available on CBBC and BBC iPlayer. The series also enjoys success beyond the screen, with four CBBC web games, including physics game Picnic Puzzler, and on Roblox with its own platform game as part of BBC's Wonder Chase experience. Watch Super Happy Magic Forest on BBC iPlayer and add to your Watchlist CBeebies Bedtime Stories CBeebies Bedtime Stories will be making sure that you and your little ones can't wait for bedtime over the bank holiday weekend, with an egg-citing line-up of celebrities reading some cracking new stories! CBeebies Bedtime Stories favourite Tom Hardy leads the Easter weekend fun on Friday 18 April with a reading of Milo's Monster: A Big Bright Feelings Book written and illustrated by Tom Percival. Singer and YouTuber Talia Mar will then read Nature's Toy Box by Wenda Shurety and illustrated by Harriet Hobday on Saturday. BBC Radio 2's Good Morning Sunday co-presenter, Rev. Kate Bottley, has a bunny-tastic adventure in store for family audiences, with a reading of The Hot Cross Bunny written by Carys Bexington and illustrated by Mark A. Chambers on Easter Sunday. Then rounding off the weekend of fun, comedian Mo Gilligan reads Oh No, George! written and illustrated by Chris Haughton on Monday 21 April. CBeebies Bedtime Stories is on each weekday at 6.50pm on CBeebies and BBC iPlayer Snooker World Championship The biggest event in the snooker calendar is back, as the 2025 World Snooker Championship takes centre stage at the iconic Crucible Theatre in Sheffield from 19 April to 5 May. Reigning World Champion Kyren Wilson will be out to retain his crown, but with fierce competition, the battle for the title is set to be tough as the steel city itself. BBC Sport will once again provide extensive coverage of the World Championship ensuring fans won't miss a moment of the action. Watch live coverage on BBC One, BBC Two, iPlayer and evening sessions on BBC Four. Matches will be shown in full from the opening round to the final, with every ball potted shown on iPlayer and the BBC Sport website/app. Women's Six Nations You can follow live coverage of the Women's Six Nations across the BBC over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. On Saturday, Italy faces France in Parma on BBC iPlayer while England hosts Scotland on BBC Two and iPlayer, with Gabby Logan and guests Simon Middleton, Deborah McCormack, Heather Lockhart and Katy Daley-McLean. On Sunday, Catrin Heledd is joined by former Wales captain Siwan Lillicrap and Sioned Harries as Wales welcome Ireland to Rodney Parade on BBC One Wales and BBC iPlayer. Movies on iPlayer If you're eager for an Easter movie night you won't be short of films for all ages. From family fun with Lightyear, Peter Rabbit, Dumbo and more (Shrek 1, 2 and 3, anyone?) to Classic Films and Musicals including Easter Parade and new arrivals like Priscilla (from Sunday 20 April), there's something for everyone. Watch Feel-good Family Fun Films on BBC iPlayer Watch Classic Films and Musicals on BBC iPlayer
Telegraph
15-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Easter reminds us of the immense spiritual power of music
I love Gareth Malone. He is truly the best of British: polite, charming, enthusiastic, knowledgeable and tireless at what he does, introducing people to the utter joy that it is to sing in a choir like a sort of geeky, white British male, non-gangster version of Sister Act 's Deloris Van Cartier. This Easter, Malone will be gracing our television screens once again as he takes a scratch group of rookie singers and turns them into a choir that will this time perform Handel's Messiah, the epic oratorio that the composer wrote in just 24 days. As with all of Malone's transformations, it promises to be a tear jerker. The key to Malone's appeal is that he manages to convey to participants and viewers something of the incredible power that music has not only to take us out of ourselves, but as a tool to communicate and to move. The Messiah is nearly 300 years old: as Malone himself has pointed out, it's not a perfect work, but 'there is a touch of divine inspiration' about it. In an interview at the weekend, Malone told the story of how, after one of the choral participants fainted (and was quickly revived), the team went straight into the Hallelujah chorus, where he had 'a kind of out-of-body experience'. Others, he says, 'had a very spiritual reaction to it. That's the great thing about singing in a choir. You feel part of something much bigger than yourself. You tap into communal emotions that make you forget your own difficulties, at least for a while.' I know exactly what he means. Two Sundays ago I sat in Amsterdam's serene and beautiful Westerkerk and listened to my son's school chapel choir singing Orlando Gibbons's Drop, Drop Slow Tears. Exactly a week before, I'd been singing the same piece myself, in a scratch choir of old girls who'd come to celebrate the centenary of my old school deep in the North Yorkshire countryside, where I'd been head chorister some 25 years ago. It was impossible not to be moved by either occasion, or to marvel at the power of a piece of music that is 392 years old and yet makes me cry whether I'm listening to my son sing it or I'm singing it myself. As with the Messiah, it is the piece's familiarity that shifts something deep inside me; knowing it so intimately lends every performance an extra layer of meaning. As I bore my sons silly telling them, being able to read music is like speaking another language, and like speaking another language it will give you a connection and a means of communication everywhere you go. I have joined choirs in every place I have lived as an adult; each time I have made new friends and deepened old bonds, with both music and people. 'Being able to read music opens so many doors,' Malone points out, entirely correctly. And yet the opportunity to access this new language is dwindling fast. Although music is part of the national curriculum – mandatory at Key Stage 3 (children aged between 11 and 14) – it's treated as an optional extra by many schools and more than half of secondary schools don't teach it. Only 5,000 students in England took A-level music in 2023, down 45 per cent since 2010, and the Independent Society of Musicians has identified a 36 per cent drop in GCSE music pupils. This is dire. How will future generations relate to and unify over the music that soars in our churches up and down the country this Easter? It's especially depressing when you consider not only what music teaches but its extraordinary ability to heal. The other BBC production I have earmarked on my Easter watchlist (and have tissues at the ready for) is the extraordinary story of my friend Clemency Burton-Hill, who five years ago suffered a terrible brain haemorrhage and spent 17 days in a coma. The entire right-hand side of her body still doesn't work properly; she has no sensation on that side at all. And yet Clemmie, who has played the violin since she was a small child and performed in concert halls around the world, has made the most extraordinary recovery, thanks largely to music-based occupational therapy – in fact even before that, the first sign of life after her brain exploded was when she started tapping her fingers in time to the classical music her husband played to her in hospital. Being musical increases your chance of having language transferred to the other side of your brain, which is why Clemmie can now talk again, and even play her violin. Her story is extraordinary, awe-inspiring, moving and hopeful. Just like the Messiah, like Gibbons – and like Easter itself.
Yahoo
23-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The dementia day centre where they sing The Beatles to reawaken memories
People living with dementia sang hits by Elvis and The Beatles in a competition for renowned television choirmaster Gareth Malone. Users of the Jewish Care charity's centres came together for a competition at its Sam Beckman Centre in Friern Barnet. judged by the presenter of the BBC series The Choir. He said: 'Singing is one of the few tools we have to retain our emotions and personality,' he said. 'It's the closest thing to magic.' MOST READ: Burglar left elderly couple feeling violated by ransacking their home Members of the charity's Sandringham day centre in Stanmore sang the 1960s' Beatles classic Hey Jude, which earned them the 'Showstopper' award for the most theatrical performance. The Beckman centre choir performed Elvis Presley's I Can't Help Falling in Love with You, which won them the 'Most Emotional' award, while the Noé Nightingales from the Zalman and Ruchi Noé Centre sang Those Were the Days and won the 'Feel Good Factor' award. 'Singing for Memory' groups are run by volunteers and music therapists which can include learning instruments. Healthcare practitioner Edmond Jeffery, a who leads a weekly group at the Stanmore centre said: 'Singing gives a sense of community and new-found confidence which grows after each session.' Jewish Care's Friern Barnet manager Tanya Miller, who organised the competition, said: 'Music has huge benefits for people with dementia, helping maintain cognitive abilities, reducing anxiety and stimulating memories by maintaining speech and language.' People living with dementia who join music groups also learn new skills like singing that help stimulate them, the charity says.
BBC News
27-02-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Gareth Malone to bring Handel's Messiah to new singers with a spectacular Easter concert
275 years after a ground-breaking charity concert saw George Frideric Handel perform his Messiah for the benefit of London's foundlings, Gareth Malone is set to stage his own performance of the nation's favourite choral piece in the magnificent surroundings of Cardiff's Llandaff Cathedral as a fundraiser for BBC Children in Need. The programme has been commissioned by BBC Religion and BBC Cymru Wales following on from a successful earlier series, Gareth Malone's Easter Passion, broadcast in 2024. The programmes will see Gareth trim hundreds of applicants down to just eight singers who have never sung in a classical choir before, and then train them to perform a work that has dominated the British choral tradition for hundreds of years. Gareth's eight singers will reveal even the most inexperienced musicians can tackle Messiah as they bring enthusiasm and hard work to this once-in-a-lifetime challenge. Gareth's new recruits, might not have tried choral music before or even heard of Handel, but they will have just seven weeks from audition to performing Messiah alongside the acclaimed BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales. Also appearing will be a stellar professional cast of soprano Jessica Robinson, alto Rebecca Afonwy-Jones, baritone Roderick Williams OBE who sang at the King's Coronation, and tenor James Way. Gareth Malone said: 'Handel's Messiah was one of the very first concerts that I went to as a child with my parents, and it's a work that my Welsh grandmother sang in a choir. So I am shouting Hallelujah to the rafters at the prospect of sharing this magnificent work with eight complete newbie choral singers. I will relish going on this adventure with them, many of whom are overcoming personal challenges, building to the concert of a lifetime for both them and me.' Richard Farmbrough said: 'Messiah is often described as the world's most popular choral work, performed everywhere from the grandest of concert stages to the humblest of village halls. It also seems to have been continuously performed since the 1750 concert at the Foundling Hospital, and rightly so. With tunes as breathtaking as the Hallelujah Chorus this oratorio is part of our cultural shorthand. We are delighted to be making this series and there is no one better than Gareth Malone to bring Handel's genius to an even wider audience.' The series of two x 60 minute documentaries and 1 x 120 minute performance was commissioned by Christina Macaulay for BBC Cymru Wales and Daisy Scalchi, BBC Head of Religion. The documentaries will be directed by Dave Huw Jones; the performance is produced by Rhian Williams and directed by Rhodri Huw. Richard Farmbrough and Owen Rodd executive produce for Somersault Studio. The programmes will be broadcast across BBC One, BBC Two and BBC Cymru Wales at Easter. The project has been supported by the Welsh Government via Creative Wales. Watch Gareth Malone's Easter Passion on BBC iPlayer MER
