Friday July 25. It’s Barker Swings night, and the choir will be performing.
Tonight felt special, not because I was wearing the red and black for the last time, but because it was the last time we were performing from our ‘battle’ repertoire. JAllington, our conductor, called it “the ridiculous”, but we all loved it. That night started at 5pm, the rehearsal.
Nostalgia filled the room, as we were all moving to the music that we sung, what felt like, many months ago. Then, the choreography was changed to fit the longer version of “Say a Little Prayer”. For an hour, we went through moves with O’Brien, but in the end it was what she described “three songs mashed up into one”. We all felt good, now it would be up to the performance.
Five hours later, we were just about to enter the hall for our part of Swings. Everyone was hyped; it couldn’t get better than this. The Big Band started to play; we ran on, the crowd loved us. About five minutes later, it was over. Our last performance as the ‘battle’ choir was done. As we left the stage, I felt happy and slightly sad. Battle of the Choirs had been a great experience for all of us. Now, it was back to our normal repertoire and schedule.
Working for TV is very different to what many people think it is. On our filming days, there were many rehearsals to get the best camera positions, basically to get everything right. Filming 40 minutes of footage took about three hours! I can’t stress how unique and fulfilling this experience was.
