Military Wives Choir First World War Prom
Earlier this year, we took centre stage at the Royal Albert Hall in a special Prom to commemorate the start of the First World War. The ‘Proms Military Wives Choir’ was directed by Gareth Malone and made up of singers from 42 different choirs in the Military Wives Choirs network. The amazing story of the choir’s journey to the Prom is the subject of a new two part BBC documentary – the first episode will be shown on Tuesday 16th December 2014 at 21.00 on BBC with episode 2 following on 24 th December at 20.30.
The sell-out concert, which was part of the BBC’s annual Proms series, took place on Sunday 3 rd August, the eve of the 100 th Anniversary of the day Britain entered the war. On the day, the choir was joined by life-size puppets from the National Theatre’s production of Michael Morpurgo’s ‘War Horse’. The Prom will be broadcast on BBC2, 26 th December, 17.30.
The documentary tells the story of how Gareth Malone selected the 100 strong choir and then led it through a grueling rehearsal schedule in preparation for its unique commemorative performance. At the concert the women performed a series of taxing classical pieces including Elgar’s ‘The Snow’ and an incredibly moving setting of Tennyson’s poem ‘Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead’. Many of the pieces were composed at the time of the First World War.
Nicky Clarke, Chair of the Military Wives Choirs Foundation, said, “We were honoured to perform at this extraordinarily special event, remembering as it did the role that women and music played during the First World War. The documentary tells the first-hand story of the women in the choir, illustrating some very strong parallels with the experiences of women some 100 years before.”
Watch the BBC2 Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I77QO_GRkxA
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