Lydia is in her final year of primary school, which is in itself somewhat of a terrifying fact to me, and has taken part in the “world’s largest children’s choir” twice now. She has really enjoyed Young Voices from start to finish; singing practice with her friends after school, listening & learning the songs on her iPad at home, and finally performing with thousands of other children at the Resorts World Arena.
Last year was the first time her primary school took part in Young Voices, and Lydia was the only child her class that signed up to participate. This year, after she told her friends how much she enjoyed it, Lydie had her best friend by her side as well amongst others from their class and the other KS2 classes – so many kids signed up they actually had a waiting list.
Young Voices bring together choirs from primary schools all over the UK to perform together at various arenas across the country. They all learn the same music (and some basic dance moves) in advance at their school, then spend the afternoon in rehearsal together at the arena, before doing an evening performance for an audience. Each school is allocated one night at a venue, with each of the venues having multiple nights of performances to allow all the schools to take part.
This year the music included a Moana medley and a Matilda medley which Lydia was thrilled about, as she loves the songs from both, as well as a few other medleys and some nice song choices too. The whole album is available on Spotify which makes it super easy to practice at home. There was even a recorded message from Tim Minchin played before the Matilda medley that was a complete surprise to the kids and they went a bit wild at it – Lydia told me they hadn’t played it in the rehearsal earlier in the day.
In between songs, they have artists that come on stage to entertain the kids and the audience – and who quite often get the kids involved with their act. This can be dancing along or joining in with bits of their songs. This year MC Grammar, a teacher who went viral rapping about books & education, is one of the acts performing on stage, as well as Nandi Bushell who is an amazing young dummer. They also had a fab dance group and various guest singers – it was all very entertaining.
Lydia really loved the whole experience, and the concert itself feels like some crazy cross between a humongous choir performance and a kids party. The energy levels were high, the stands were vibrating with the drumbeat of over five thousand school children banging their feet, and trying to spot your child amongst the thousands there is like some crazy game of Where’s Wally – even with the school taking along a banner (that Lydia and her best friend made!) and us having a vague idea of their location from the teacher’s message.
If your child likes to sing and getting involved in group activities, then this is definitely something worth checking out – even if you do have to fork over a fair amount of cash to pay for tickets to go along and watch, and for the (optional) t-shirt.
The merchandise on sale at the events is expensive, and of course and food and drink at arena prices is likely to bankrupt you, too. We took along snacks to keep up going and only bought a few bottles to drink once we were in the arena – though I did buy Lydia a souvenir scrunchie and the programme was a fairly affordable five quid. We also paid for the concert video as James was away so couldn’t come along to watch, and we did manage to spot her in it a few times, so she will have that to remember her day by too.
Lydia is a bit sad that she won’t be taking part any more since she is off to high school in September, but she is hoping to join the school choir instead so fingers crossed on that.
