Music
NYCoS National Boys' Choir, City Hall, Glasgow
Michael Tumelty
Five stars
I CAME home on Thursday from the National Youth Choir of Scotland's City Hall concert, this one given by the lads, the National Boys Choir, wearing an inane grin and in a state of wonder. I should confess that, for personal reasons, this Easter period, during which I am immersed in the activities of Scotland's young musical organisations, is a profoundly uplifting one, leaving me very responsive to the qualities of this musical generation, unrolling steadily and continuing through the coming week.
And it seemed to me on Thursday, listening to the three levels of the Boys Choir: the Junior Chorus on the way up, the ones there right now in the National Choir, and the tenors and basses whose voices have deepened and broadened, that Christopher Bell, founder of all this, along with his platoon of assistants, coaches, accompanists (and now training their own conductors) has created a magical template for the future of top-drawer singing across the generations and the genders in Scotland. Right through the choir's repertoire, from the formal beauties of Vivaldi and Britten, to the soulful, playful, moving numbers of Bob Chilcott and many others, and even to Unchained Melody (always a great tune) and You'll Never Walk Alone, the fundamental NYCoS qualities of pristine articulation, dead-centre intonation, quality of tone and an open-ness of delivery that is honest in its impact, have an irresistible emotional effect. But it's not just all that: the music that poured from these young throats was so characterful that something struck me early in the concert, and never left me: "I believe every word they are singing."
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