Enjoy CHORUS Celebration At Southbank Centre

Everyone is invited to join in, with nightly choral clubs designed to catch the commuter, several karaoke sessions, and the opportunity to be part of the world's largest Beatbox Choir.

Choirs to look out for include Southbank Centre Associate Artists The Sixteen, The Bach Choir, The English Philharmonia and Chorus, City of London Choir, Chantage, Coro Cervantes, Libera, Swingle Singers, Shlomo and The Vocal Orchestra, London Adventist Chorale, the Fron Male Voice Choir, Highgate Choral Society, a showcase of some of the past winners and finalists from BBC Choir of the Year and Southbank Centre's own Voicelab choirs.

Gillian Moore, Head of Contemporary Culture at Southbank Centre said: 'Southbank Centre has always been a favourite venue for choirs to perform. With this in mind, Chorus is a new week-long festival curated to celebrate singing. In Chorus, professional choirs sit alongside amateur groups, and everyone can participate in a wide-variety of free events. I hope as many people as possible will come and join us – whether by taking part in the opening spectacular across the spaces of the Royal Festival Hall, by learning some jazz ballads or by listening to music from Faure and Monteverdi to world premieres.'

EVENTS TO GET INVOLVED IN

Opening Voices, Choral Club, Karaoke and a chance to be in the world's largest Beatbox choir

Chorus opens on 11 May with Opening Voices when hundreds of singers will fill the public spaces of the Royal Festival Hall. Featuring choirs from Southbank Centre's Voicelab programme, along with many other singers from a range of backgrounds, this culminates with a massed sing in The Clore Ballroom. Choirs and individual singers can be involved by either attending an open rehearsal on the day, or applying to perform some prepared repertoire in one of the Hall's public spaces (see details in listings below).

Running every weekday evening across the festival, Choral Club takes up residence in The Front Room at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Each evening, everyone will have the chance to stop by and join in with an hour-long singing session – perfect for commuters. Participants will be taken through a selection of pieces across different styles. These free sessions include musical theatre, pop classics, world voices, gospel and jazz, with a different guest director each night – Mary King, Tony Castro, Chris Rowbury, Ken Burton, Tina Brooks and Anita Wardell. All participants will be invited to return on Sunday 18 May for a massed performance in The Clore Ballroom as the climax of the festival.

In addition to the commuter hour events, Thursday 15 – Saturday 17 May from 9.30pm, The Front Room stage will host free Karaoke sessions for all to come along and take part. A massed beatboxing class on The Clore Ballroom, led by Resident Artist Shlomo will take place on 17 May at 11am. Those with a ticket to the evening concert by Shlomo and The Vocal Orchestra, will be able to learn how to beatbox during the day and then be part of the finale to the concert. With the entire audience beatboxing, participants will be adding their voice to the world's largest beatbox choir.

CONCERTS

The opening concerts of Chorus begin on the evening of 11 May with The Bach Choir in the Royal Festival Hall joined by the Philharmonia Orchestra and conducted by David Hill. The programme encompasses many different styles of choral music from Mahler's 16-part unaccompanied setting of Ruckert's Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen, to the full orchestral version of Faure's Requiem. On the same evening the Queen Elizabeth Hall plays host to Libera, the internationally renowned choir of boys aged 7 to 14, which has topped the mainstream and classical charts with its recent recordings. The boys attend many different local schools in South London.

A concert by The English Philharmonia and Chorus on 12 May presents the world premiere of Songs of the Coromandel Coast by India-based composer Chris Williams. This new work for tenor, children's choir, chorus and orchestra celebrates recovery after the aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami and is the sequel to Williams' earlier Tsunami Requiem. The programme also includes Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings with soloists James Gilchrist and Richard Watkins.

The City of London Choir, joined by the London Mozart Players and conducted by Hilary Davan Wetton, brings a concert of quintessentially British music to the Queen Elizabeth Hall on 13 May, with a programme to mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Vaughan Williams. The programme includes Vaughan Williams' An Oxford Elegy and The Lark Ascending alongside works by Holst and Bliss. The same evening Chantage, the BBC Radio 3 Choir of the Year, with its conductor James Davey, will take their audience through popular music from the time of Henry VIII to Britney Spears. Renowned beatboxers Jestar and MC Zani make a special guest appearance.

Associate Artists at Southbank Centre, The Sixteen, bring an evening of poetry and music, all emanating from Orpheus, the father of song, on 15 May in the Queen Elizabeth Hall. For this programme, conductor Harry Christophers has chosen three of Monteverdi's Madrigals of War and Love to frame Henze's Orpheus behind the wire in which he sets highly charged political poems by Edward Bond. Working in conjunction with acclaimed writer, theatre director and filmmaker Jonathan Holmes, The Sixteen will maximise the sonic and visual impact of these powerful works with actors Alan Howard and Virginia McKenna reading poems by Petrarch and Denise Levertov.

Friday 16 May brings a complete change in styles with concerts by Coro Cervantes with Cardiff Polyphonic Choir, and the Swingle Singers. Coro Cervantes, the UK's only professional choir dedicated solely to the Hispanic classical repertoire, performs several UK premieres and the European revival of Cant de les Estrelles (Song of the Stars) by Granados. Through its performances the choir aims to bring the music of Iberian and Latin American countries to audiences who might not have a chance to enjoy this particular repertoire. For something completely different, the eight-voice a cappella Swingle Singers showcase their vocal virtuosity and arrangements in a concert in the Purcell Room.

Every member of the audience is called to take part in a concert on Saturday 17 May when Southbank Centre Resident Artist, Shlomo, returns to the Queen Elizabeth Hall with his 14-piece beatboxing ensemble, The Vocal Orchestra. Audience members will be invited to perform as the climax of the concert and be part of the world's largest beatbox choir. The concert will also include a specially-created Beatbox Chorus of children from the local area. Earlier in the day the award-winning London Adventist Chorale with its conductor Ken Burton bring a programme of African-American choral music to the Queen Elizabeth Hall. The programme will include famous spirituals inspired by water such as Deep River, Down by the Riverside and I Stood on the River of Jordan.

The final day of Chorus starts with a BBC Choir of the Year showcase in The Clore Ballroom, with free performances by some of the past winners and finalists from The Choir of the Year. These performances will help give a hint of what's in store when the final of this year's competition takes place in the Royal Festival Hall in December. The Royal Festival Hall will resound with the music of the Fron Male Voice Choir, as this choir, with members ranging from teenagers to octogenarians, brings a programme spanning opera to West End. It is joined by Fine Arts Brass. The Highgate Choral Society with its conductor Ronald Corp complete the week with a concert in the Queen Elizabeth Hall of Beethoven's Missa solemnis alongside the world premiere of Julian Knight's A hundred spirits whisper (written for Highgate Choral Society), and Ronald Corp's Missa San Marco. -- www.southbankcentre.co.uk