The massed voices of Inspiration present Raise your voice with Northern Sinfonia A sensational concert featuring all your favourites from the world of musical theatre – Sister Act, Les Misérables, Sunset Boulevard, My Fair Lady and more... 2 April 2011, The Sage Gateshead Ticket Office: 0191 443 4661 Musical Director: Gary Griffiths www.thesagegateshead.org Northern Sinfonia www.inspirationuk.com Sunday 19 December 2010 Hall One at The Sage Gateshead Welcome Everyone can… Welcome once again to Sing Together: Inspiration at The Sage Gateshead. Unbelievably, Join In and Sing it is Christmas already. As you will see from the Choral singing isn’t just for those who have rest of this programme, Inspiration have had a done it before. Our ‘Join In and Sing’ days are fabulous 2010 and are now international artists! specially designed to encourage people who If you haven’t already seen the video clips of have never sung before to have a go. And Inspiration in Paris on YouTube, do have a look. where better to have your first choral experience than within the world class acoustic offered by We are very proud of Inspiration. It was the first Hall One, accompanied by Northern Sinfonia of The Sage Gateshead’s Sing Together choirs, and conducted by Simon Fidler? founded in partnership with Gary Griffiths, and it has exceeded all of our expectations. The commitment shown by all of the choir’s singers and the Following the success of 2009’s Come and Sing quality of their singing is truly an inspiration. Hallelujah!, on Saturday 8 January 2011, experienced choir leader Simon Fidler will guide you through another day of choral discovery. The repertoire for the For those of you who don’t know, our Sing Together choirs are large scale singing day will include Zadok the Priest and other well known classical choral pieces. opportunities for absolutely anyone. We don’t audition and you don’t need any singing experience. You don’t even need to be able to read music. You just have You will have a full day workshop to learn the pieces in four part harmony before to love singing and want to give it a go. All of our Sing Together choirs are having the opportunity to perform them in Hall One with Northern Sinfonia. created to work towards a particular performance with a specific theme, so Remember to invite your friends and family to the free performance at 5.30pm you can choose to sing in all of them, or just one. So far, we have had the Sing so that they can share the results of your day’s singing. Together: SummerTyne Country Gospel Choir, the Sing Together: I Prefer the Gorgeous Freedom Choir as part of the Gateshead International Jazz Festival With tickets at only £5 and free entry to the final sharing for family and friends, and we have Sing Together: Mozart Coronation Mass and Sing Together: Jazz what better way could there be to welcome in the New Year? Festival Choirs rehearsing and performing in early 2011. You can enrol to sing by calling our Ticket Office on 0191 443 4661 or find out We believe, as Gary does, that anyone can sing. more online at www.thesagegateshead.org Why not make 2011 the year your New Year’s resolution is to give it a go? Silent Night “I thought the Katherine Zeserson ‘Silent Night’ was sung conductor did a fabulous job of encouraging and Director of Learning and Participation simultaneously in French, English and German by troops “working with singers of all during the Christmas truce of abilities, keeping the experience 1914, as it was one of the few fun and enjoyable while adding carols that soldiers on challenge for those with both sides of the more experience.” front line knew. ” Merry Christmas Thank you once again for joining us all in our celebration of Christmas. Hasn’t it come around fast? In this concert you will hear many of your Christmas favourites, all given our special treatment. You will even get a chance to join in! A lot has happened since our last concert here in the summer, most momentously of all our first international event. As many of you will know, we have in our repertoire a medley from Disney’s ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’, so in the summer we (nearly 400 of us) went to Paris. We sang to a standing room only audience in Église Saint-Eustache, then the following day we performed twice on the main Castle Stage at Disneyland Paris. On the final day we got on a boat. All of us, on one boat. On the Seine. Sailing past the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Singing Hunchback! The whole weekend was quite memorable and I know it was the first of many. We continue to take our singing out into the community to raise money for many charities including Helpline Victim Support, Macmillan Nurses, St. Gemma’s and St. Oswald’s Hospices and many church restoration funds. We really look forward to expanding our outside events as they mean a lot to us. I am so proud of the commitment and dedication these singers give me. I think we are definitely proving that we can sing anything! And to you of course, thank you for your support, and the support I know a lot Joy To The World of you give the singers away from rehearsals. First published in 1719, ‘Joy to the World’ continues Gary to be popular today and is the most published Christmas carol in North American history. As well as enjoying the beautiful sights of Paris, Inspiration performed four concerts in three wonderful and contrasting venues throughout the city, including the magnificent Église Saint-Eustache and the magical Castle Stage at Disneyland Paris. Our final performance was aboard a cruise boat on the Seine on which we performed our ‘Hunchback’ medley, whilst sailing past Notre Dame Cathedral! You can find out more about our trip by visiting the Inspiration website www.inspirationuk.com, but here’s what a few people had to say: “I sat next to a French lady outside Saint Eustache, while waiting to start our performance. She told me that earlier in the day she had come into Paris for a meeting. As she walked past the cathedral she could hear “beautiful singing” so she stepped inside to listen to our rehearsal. She described the sound as “filling the church with our beautiful voices, so far up to the roof, I thought you would lift it off”. She decided to stay in the city, to listen to our concert in the evening. It was such a pleasure to hear her speak of the choir in such glowing terms.” Inspiration hits Paris! Sheila Kimber Many months ago Gary had the idea of taking Inspiration to Paris “As the trimaran emerged from beneath a bridge, the first exuberant note of the Hallelujah Chorus rang to sing our much loved medley from Disney’s The Hunchback of out. I glanced up to see a bride and groom poised for Notre Dame. In the early hours of 27 August 2010 this idea was a photograph. The groom spun around and looked realised when nearly 400 Inspiration singers and supporters down in amazement! What a perfectly timed moment. headed to Paris for a five day tour of the city. Hollywood could not have done it better!” Barbara Roper “It was Saturday afternoon and whilst the group came to Saint Eustache for their rehearsal, I was setting up my camera equipment. They started to sing ‘Non Nobis Domine’ and I had to stop what I was doing as I got goose bumps and shivers down my spine. As I stopped to listen to the beautiful sound that was coming from the choir, I found myself welling up. That was only the rehearsal – I couldn’t wait for the full concert!” Fran Bridges, Rayburn Tours Inspiration would like to thank everyone who helped make this trip such a success. To Sue, Janice, Judith, Chris, Andy, Mark, Rich, Matt and Rayburn Tours. We all just have one question. Where next? I have always wondered if you can tell the difference between the two An interview with… Inspiration choirs – although we are all ‘Northerners’, we do speak differently but do we sound different? If you’ve been to one of our concerts before you will obviously This is a fascinating question. The difference between the two choirs is most obvious recognise Inspiration’s Founder and Musical Director, Gary Griffiths. at the beginning of each term, before the work on vowels really kicks in. During Gary founded Inspiration in 2008 with the simple ethos that warmups we do try to get a uniform sound for all our vowels, but if you haven’t sung everyone can sing. He has sung in and conducted choirs all his life for a few weeks, then the regional accents can come through. The two choirs each and truly believes that singing in a large group is life-affirming and have their own personality too, but I couldn’t possibly declare a favourite. fulfilling in a way that few other activities can be. Here Gary answers a few questions about Inspiration’s two choirs and life off the If you weren’t involved in music, which other career path do you think you conductor’s podium. might have taken? I would have loved to have been an actor. I did a lot of serious drama at school, Singing obviously gives many people from all walks of life a lot of pleasure.