The Voice Project perform ‘The Distance Between Us’ at St Andrew’s Hall Norwich and from start to finish this was a unique and exceptional choir concert.
This choir had to meet online during Covid, however they kept a diary of this time and a film was created to document their experiences, which incidentally won an award! This performance is a live re-making of that collective chronicle as they can once again sing together.
Before taking our seats, we were guided on a route which took our walk through some of the wonderful areas of the St Andrew’s Hall complex, members of the choir were quietly ‘performing’ different tasks along the way. They were sorting, creating, contemplating, organising, crafting a range of things, we were getting an insight of their personal lockdown diaries, it helped the audience to be reflective of this time and ready for the concert.
There were a few musicians already playing; a pianist, percussionist and a flautist. They created beautiful sounds on our arrival, and they continued to do so during the concert. We were also treated to instrumental segments while the choir manoeuvred around the space during the performance.
The music, the singing and the songs were all completely amazing. There must have been at least 150 members of the choir all adding their wonderful voices to this performance. The melodies, the harmonies, the multiple voice parts were wonderfully in tune and resonated around the great hall with light and dark as they used their voices softly and then built up to a full sound as they all sung as one.
The singing came from all areas of the space, whether it was the sides, the middle or up high – the large choir moved into the different spaces with purpose, they were not trying to quietly sneak into a new space, the flow of the people was part of the theatre. One soloist was continuing with her piece as she walked off the space, into the back and we could still hear her voice resonate as it drifted away like an echo, it was stunning
The choir were singing these wonderful poems which had been put to this subtle, gentle music. Poems with words such as:
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
That sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all…
The setting was dramatic and wonderful, St Andrew’s Hall is part of the oldest friary complex in the UK and were in amazing hall with fantastic acoustics for a unique choir concert. This was a contemporary, modern choral theatre performance which was unusual yet wonderful and beyond comparable. It felt a privilege to have been there.
The Voice Project is a choir which brings together non-auditioned singers with experienced professionals. Founded and run by Jonathan Baker and Sian Croose. For more information click here.
Read my interview with Jonathan Baker here.