Christopher Morley speaks to the founder of a new all-woman Birmingham choir.
The founder of a new all-woman Birmingham choir is getting a little nervous.
Myriam Toumi, a 25-year-old student from the Birmingham Conservatoire, is preparing for the group’s launch concert, which takes place tonight (Thursday).
The choir is dedicated to performing works specially written for female voices by a range of classical composers.
Myriam, a French postgraduate choral conducting student, tells me how she came to choose the group’s name, Thaleia.
“She was one of the Greek graces, the Muse of Comedy, and the word literally means ‘‘rich, plentiful, flourishing, enthusiastic’’ – I thought that was perfect for us,” Myriam explains.
Though she had begun by learning the viola (“I really would have loved to play the cello, but it was too big for me when I was a little girl”) Myriam’s interest in singing developed at a comparatively early age.
“In my studies at a music school just outside Paris I started to sing in a choir, and I started to really like it and got a good relationship with my chorus mistress. When I was 13 she told me to audition for the youth choir of Radio France, and I passed.
“It was very professional, and we did about 40 concerts a year. It was part-time, but really intense. I was at school in the morning, and then the whole afternoon with the choir, also singing-lessons, harmony, everything else.
“It was really good training, and I loved my chorus master there. He gave us the opportunity to have some conducting workshops. I got my diploma and decided to carry on. I got a job conducting in a music school when I was 19, and after that my teacher advised me to try to study with Paul Spicer at Birmingham Conservatoire, so I focused on that.”
Myriam recalls her first meeting with Spicer, one of this country’s most eminent choral directors who includes the Finzi Singers and Birmingham Bach Choir in his conducting portfolio.
“I was impressed, this really tall man, and I knew he was good. And because of my English I was a bit scared. He was really nice to me for my first audition, when I rehearsed the Conservatoire’s Camerata choir for 20 minutes in a Bruckner motet.”
Another great Midland choral conductor who has helped Myriam is Jeffrey Skidmore, also a major figure on the Conservatoire’s staff, and in whose Ex Cathedra Myriam sang in the recent celebratory performance of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius at Birmingham Town Hall.
We move on to talk about Thaleia, and how Myriam created the group.
“I enjoyed my time with the youth choir, and the repertoire, and it’s always been a dream for me since I left to form my own choir, with good singers. Somebody said why don’t you just do it? You’ve got all the singers here, you know everybody, why not?
“I thought people might be too busy, with all the exams they have to do, but actually the girls loved the idea, and it has been easy to find the singers. There are 18 singers, in four parts, but in this programme we are also singing in two parts and three parts. They go from second-year to post-graduates, and the Conservatoire has been really supportive.”
Thaleia’s repertoire for this opening concert in the Jewellery Quarter’s cosy and acoustically comfortable St Paul’s Church has been chosen from composers from the Romantic period: Brahms, Schubert, Berlioz, Felix Mendelssohn and his sister Fanny.
Mention of Fanny Mendelssohn prompts an observation from me that sometimes enterprises such as Myriam’s become vehicles for feminists. Might that happen in this case?
“No, not really. I’m doing it because I love the repertoire, and I’m including the Fanny Mendelssohn because it’s beautiful and she’s not known well enough.”
There’s another chance to hear rare choral repertoire on Saturday, when Birmingham Choral Union gives the Birmingham premiere of Paul McCartney’s oratorio Ecce Cor Meum. It is coupled with Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem, as BCU conductor Colin Baines explains.
“I really wanted to do the Vaughan Williams and was casting around for something that would go with it. Coincidentally I saw a programme on TV about Ecce Cor Meum and thought that it was attractive, quirky and remarkably complementary in subject matter to the RVW.
“I was struck with the thought that Paul McCartney had probably done more for me musically than any other living composer. I didn’t know any of his other orchestral or choral pieces, but I got hold of a score of this piece and found that he still has the same genius for melody that he had 45 years ago, he knows how to mix comfort and surprise, and I feel that the emotional content is genuine and shines through the music – unlike some other popular classical composers, where its calculation shines out in flashing dollar signs.’’
* Thaleia performs at St Paul’s Church in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter tonight (Thursday) at 7.30pm (admission free). Birmingham Choral Union performs Dona Nobis Pacem and Ecce Cor Meum at Birmingham Town Hall on Saturday (7.30pm). Details on 0121 780 3333.
