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Private Notes
Gareth Malone, the charismatic choirmaster from the Bafta-winning series The Choir, is back and about to face his biggest challenge yet. He makes it his mission to turn South Oxhey, a sprawling housing estate just outside Watford, into a centre of choral excellence by drawing in people from every section of the community, from children to OAPs, and creating one vast choir. The final goal is to put on a major performance in South Oxhey, and invite the whole estate to the party.
In September 2008, Gareth heads to South Oxhey for the very first time. He finds a divided community struggling to shake off a poor reputation that stretches back decades. As Gareth talks to local people, most agree that the area is in desperate need of a boost, but few think that a choir is the answer. Undeterred, Gareth scours every inch of South Oxhey looking for recruits for his choir. At the town's boxing club, Gareth meets Matty Leonard, a well-known local figure and a passionate defender of the estate. Although Matty has his doubts about Gareth's chances of success, the pair strike a deal - Matty will give the choir a go but only if Gareth agrees to meet him in the ring first.
Slowly but surely, Gareth's persistence begins to pay off and when the date of the first rehearsal comes around, everyone is astounded by the turnout. Gareth is delighted that the community have responded to his call but finds himself faced with an unexpected challenge. He has never dealt with a choir this large before and he is not sure he is going to be able to cope!
Having created a choir in the Hertfordshire housing estate of South Oxhey, choirmaster Gareth Malone sets out to take it places. South Oxhey suffers from a poor reputation in surrounding neighbourhoods, but Gareth believes his choir can hold its own among Hertfordshire's best.
Just three months after they began, he arranges a public performance in one of the region's most daunting concert venues, so they can be heard outside their own estate for the first time. Gareth then spreads his mission wider to reach South Oxhey's children. He finds singers from each of the estate's six primary schools to join a new children's choir and coaches them towards their first ever performance in front of an audience of their own parents and friends.
Gareth's ambitions for both choirs rest on whether they can make a success of their first big concerts.
Choirmaster Gareth Malone has started two successful choirs, for adults and children, in the housing estate of South Oxhey, but he believes they won't become 'real' choirs until they can perform technically challenging classical music, and sing in Latin. So he arranges for both his choirs to sing at concert performances alongside highly accomplished musicians in front of demanding audiences.
At first, many members in his choir feel it's impossible for a new choir, most of whom cannot even read music, to perform at this level. Some threaten to leave. Will Gareth be able to convince his singers that they can match his aspirations?
Nearing the end of his project in the Hertfordshire housing estate of South Oxhey, choirmaster Gareth Malone sets out on a grand venture to get the whole community behind his choral project. He decides he wants to stage a free choral festival at South Oxhey playing fields, a large green space normally used for football and dog-walking, and embarks on putting together the largest event this area has seen for half a century.
With the help of local residents, the new South Oxhey Festival takes shape. Gareth draws together every strand of his singing project to form a grand choir of unprecedented size, which will sing together at the festival for the first time. Will South Oxhey's residents take their community choir to their hearts?
In 2009, choirmaster Gareth Malone went on a mission to lift the spirits of a marginalised and divided community, the town of South Oxhey in Hertfordshire. He worked with all sections of the local community, including primary and secondary schools, churches, parents and clubs.
Gareth immersed himself in the community to create adult and children's choirs who went on to perform in the ambitious Festival of Song in the summer of 2009. Thus, he succeeded in putting this forgotten community on the map.
Now Gareth returns to South Oxhey to catch up with the choir members, past and present, in order to see if the community is continuing to be united through song.
