Brighton Festival Chorus offer their Christmas spectacular

SussexWorld

Brighton Festival Chorus will once again launch the festive season in spectacular style with their traditional Christmas concert with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Transcript

00:00Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Always lovely

00:06to speak to James Morgan of Brighton Festival Chorus, and as ever, you've got something

00:10fantastically festive planned, haven't you? It's a real tradition, isn't it, the Brighton

00:15Festival Chorus Christmas Concert? It's been going for 20-odd years now, and

00:19we have a lovely partnership with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, who come down every

00:22year to celebrate with us before they embark on their own odyssey of 300 Christmas concerts

00:28in the Royal Albert Hall. They do one with us first, at the Brighton Dome, on the 8th

00:32of September this year. And give me a flavour of what you offer, what

00:35makes your Christmas special. So it's Christmas with a twist, if you like.

00:41So you get to sing all your favourite carols. We might mash them up with some unusual film

00:45score themes, or do some strange arrangements, just to make it a little bit more fun, a little

00:50bit more interesting. And you even get the chance to have a go at conducting. One audience

00:54member every year comes and conducts the Hallelujah Chorus, and they get their name picked out

00:57of a hat. Fantastic. And a little bit of violence to

01:00We Three Kings this year, then. Yeah, We Three Kings is going to be given

01:05an unusual cinematic twist, like you've never heard before, and may never want to hear again.

01:11Am I right in thinking you specialise in a little bit of Christmas humour as well, don't

01:16you? Well, I'm not in charge of the humour, that's

01:19the audience's job. So everyone brings their own Christmas cracker jokes, and all I do

01:23is read them out. So it's not my fault, I'm just saying that now.

01:26Right. You won't take responsibility for the jokes?

01:29Absolutely not, because they're awful, usually, but they're groan-worthy.

01:33That's what you expect of Christmas jokes. The worse, the better, isn't it? And it's

01:37been a good year for the chorus, hasn't it? You're saying you've established yourselves

01:41in London, big plans for London next year, too. It's going well.

01:45Yeah, the chorus is in rude health. Our numbers are as big as they've been for a long time,

01:51and we've just come back from a sold-out concert in Cadogan Hall in London last month.

01:57We'll be back up next year doing the Royal Festival Hall, Carmina Burana, and another

02:02concert in Cadogan Hall, and so we've got plenty to look forward to, and it's lovely

02:06to see the chorus in such great numbers. And that's worth stressing, that's a real

02:11achievement, isn't it? Because the pandemic, as we were saying, does hang over a lot of

02:15the industry, doesn't it? And I'm sure we can all think of choirs that have folded or

02:19diminished, but you are doing so well. Why is that?

02:23Do you know what? I don't really know what the tipping point was. We had a couple of

02:27years when we were a bit low on numbers, but all the old members have come back, and we've

02:32got quite a lot of new ones, and some younger members whisper it quietly, which is great.

02:37Always good to see people, you know, maybe in their 20s and 30s, joining a chorus now,

02:42which is fabulous to see.

02:44Fantastic. That's another achievement. Brilliant. Well, pleased that everything is going so

02:48well. Lovely to speak to you, and have a great Christmas when it comes.

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