OS got the heads up from a good friend, headed for his remote, and spent the happiest hour of TV he had seen in many months.
'The Choir' has just made it to the US on BBC America.
He hates most 'reality' shows, but this is not about narcissists acting out their most evil instincts for the cameras. It's about a young musician, Gareth Malone, who takes on the project of taking a group of kids in a government school in the UK, turning them into a choir, and getting them ready for competition in the Choir Olympics in Beijing.
The first episode begins with the audition of some 140 kids, trying to find a couple of dozen who show enough promise. He doesn't even get that, but begins anyway. The episode ends with the kids recording their entry recording, four weeks later. The transformation of all the lives involved--choir, families, conductor, and school has begun.
This is what good music teaching does. It transforms lives, breeds discipline, esprit-de-corps, confidence, desire to excel. It breeds hope in lives that seem to have so little of it in their circumstances. 'If I can do this, perhaps there's a future for me out there in one of those other disciplines as well.'
It's not complicated, doesn't require some massive government program. Choral music education is the most cost-efficient of all, as the instruments come pre-installed in the students' bodies. Add one competent teacher with a lot of drive, a piano that is kept in tune, an accompanist, and a few bucks invested into the print music, and you've got the core of a potentially great program. It doesn't necessarily have to take place in a school--churches and community centers do just as well.
(And, unlike football or basketball, everyone graduates with their knees intact.)
OS hopes you enjoy this preview, and will tune in for the episodes.
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