GARETH MALONE’S EASTER PASSION

You’re bringing together eight amateur singers to perform Bach’s 1724 oratorio inspired by the Easter story. What was your thinking behind the project?

St John Passion,

I’m obsessed with Bach! When I was studying singing, I sang the narrator role of the Evangelist in St John, and I loved it. And this year is its 300th anniversary, so it seemed right.

AQ AWhy is such a choral masterpiece?

St John Passion

The Easter story deals with the big questions in life. We all have struggles and experience betrayal, loss and pain. This is a moving telling of that. It’s superdramatic and was a game changer when it was written.

How challenging was it to put the choir together in two months before the performance at Cardiff’s Hoddinott Hall?

It’s been more ‘sweaty’ than anything I’ve done before! This piece is two hours – it’s an Everest of a challenge for an amateur singer. So I was trying to pick people who didn’t fall apart!

AQ AWhat can you tell us about the choristers you chose?

They had varied musical experience. Astrid [a civil servant who had a health scare during pregnancy] sings in a gospel choir and learnt the whole thing by heart. Evan [a flute-playing amateur footballer who struggled in lockdown] is probably the most musical of them all, but he’s never sung classical choral music. His transformation was extraordinary. Then Jake, a partially-sighted drag queen, hid behind his ipad at first. But he has a great high tenor voice.

Q AWhat do you think they all got out of the experience?

A sense of accomplishment from tackling such a titanic work. To have 100 people singing alongside you, it’s so powerful. Now, some are off to audition for the BBC National Chorus of Wales. One said, ‘I can’t go back to my normal choir now, you’ve ruined me!’