BBC calls auditions for an amateur chorus
NewsHaving scrapped the elite BBC Singers to save money, the Corp is recruiting a diverse ensemble of amateurs for the King’s Coronation.
From a recent Daily Mail:
The BBC has launched an X Factor-style talent search to find singers for a Coronation Choir.
All kinds of singers, from beginner beatboxers to professional jazz performers, are being encouraged to apply for the choir.
It will perform the day after the King is crowned, during a concert in Windsor on May 7.
Agencies acting on behalf of BBC Studios have been asked to invite applications from the public and those taking part will be filmed for a television show documenting their bid to perform for the King…
Whatever next?
UPDATE:A casting agent writes:
I cast musicians for film and TV work. These roles are always paid above MU stipulated rates. There is no mention of the rate in your advert searching for singers to take part in the upcoming Coronation.
Of course, there is no reason why there shouldn’t be a mix of amateur and professional musicians performing at this event. But what a slap in the face for those of your colleagues at BBC Singers facing redundancy. As many others have pointed out already, it’s shameful, and ignorant.
Simply ridiculous!
What rubbish. The BBC already has two top-class non-professional real choirs despite announcing the sacking of the professional chamber choir – but of course the requirements of “reality TV” are paramount nowadays.
I mean how woke can you get?
Why not scrap the whole coronation thingy and just sing, dance, and be merry?
I think you don’t understand what woke means and I have no clue what it means in this context
How ironic that the day after the BBC announce the demise of their own cutting-edge in-house vocal group, they are now looking for amateur singers to take part in an outdated and irrelevant ceremony to celebrate the coronation of an unelected monarch.
“outdated”, “irrelevant” and “unelected” are more appropriately associated with the BBC and its funding system. You could add “unpopular” and “moribund”.
Our traditions will outlive it.
Erm, when were monarchs ever elected?
Exactly. Why pay for something if you can get it for free, eh?
Oh what about the quality then? Well they’re all tone deaf and can’t tell the difference anyway. And they don’t care.
‘I’m sorry but this £40 school violin sounds the same as that Straddivarious! It does! This grade 2 Irish jig does the same on both! A violin is a violin! Anyone who says anything otherwise is elitist!’
Yeah I bet King Charles will absolutely LOVE having not-the-BBC Singers at his own coronation.
BBC should consider hiring the King’s Singers instead?
They weren’t at the Queen’s Coronation in 1953? Who said they were going to be invited anyway to sing a programme of light entertainment music? Hardly a commissioned work or baroque. The country has run on amateur choral societies for years, and the BBC their own amateur Symphony Chorus.
. . . and the wonderful BBC National Chorus of Wales (which, incidentally, the BBC always seems to pair up with another choir when it visits the Proms when it is more than capable of performing on its own)!
They’ve got a bloody nerve.
What an absolute disgrace and a huge ‘bugger off’ to the BBC Singers!
Inclusivity at the expense of excellence!
Your casting agent has a point – only when fixing professional instrumental musicians, that is. Singers would usually be paid according to rates negotiated with Equity, not the MU; and in any case the singers sought are amaeturs not professionals, and won’t be members of either union not expecting payment, so it’s rather moot. They will be volunteers, much like those who sing the the BBC’s existing large volunteer choruses, so there’s no expectation that such an advert would have a rate at all.
I am rapidly going off the BBC. Everything it does nowadays is a mistake. The DG Tim Davie bears responsibility for its decline
“All kinds of singers, from beginner beatboxers to professional jazz performers…”
My, what a broad spectrum: “all kinds”, my… foot.
Frankly, I find this nothing short of disgusting. What an appalling insult to BBC Singers members – and also to the thousands of us who sing, voluntarily, in choruses across the UK, at a professional level, with professional orchestras and world-class conductors.
I implore anyone thinking of applying for this “amateur chorus” to show solidarity with the BBC Singers by NOT volunteering.
The BBC Singers are planned to be dissolved following the review of classical music. This Coronation Choir isn’t part of BBC classical music.
It’s moronic to think that cuts can be made in any part of the BBC, e.g. in a reality series about the formation of the Coronation Choir or in the presentation of TV football, and that this budget saving can then be graciously handed to the classical music budget to save the BBC Singers.
Combined with the news, and censorship, of Gary Lineker and David Attenborough alongside the cutbacks of musicians and axing of the BBC Singers, something far more sinister is being perpetrated by DG Tim Davie and his cronies. Watch the groundswell of support within the UK for his removal. Will BBC Question Time allow this to be debated or is it far too sensitive. I hope Choral Directors have nothing to do with this crazy venture of a new choir and that Unions blacklist the Coronation.
Doesn’t this actually sound more expensive to tax payers in the long run? . . . They’ll have to pay people to arrange whatever music it is they’ll be singing, and they’ll have to pay someone to direct and shape this ad hoc choir. That’s not to mention the production costs involved. Do they have sponsors lined up?
well, they don’t need to call auditions for amateur management, since they already have one.