Our Dementia Choir: Chris Connell, Julie Hill, Ahmed Pochee Interview Part 1
Title
Our Dementia Choir: Chris Connell, Julie Hill, Ahmed Pochee Interview Part 1
Date
19 October 2022
Description
Oral history interview with Chris Connell, Julie Hill, Ahmed Pochee, members of the Nottingham Our Dementia Choir about their performance at the Royal Concert Hall in May 2019
What's the story?
‘Our Dementia Choir’ began as part of a documentary created for BBC1 in 2018. Local Nottingham actor Vicky McClure formed a choir of people all living with dementia to see whether music can make a measurable difference in their lives. Joining forces with some of the country’s leading experts, the choir took part in ground-breaking scientific studies to measure their emotional and physical responses to singing over three months of regular sessions….proving that people living with dementia can still achieve something truly remarkable.
In this interview Chris talks about pranking Vicky and the acoustics at The Royal Concert Hall
Transcription
[Chris]: Lovely moment on the morning of the concert. They had like a dress rehearsal for Vicky, because she wasn’t there the day before. So Vicky was just checking all her words and things that she had to say (she had it all written down) and Julie and I escaped from our green room, so the auditorium was completely empty, Julia and I escaped just to see what was going on and we got in through one of the back doors of the auditorium and went in. It was all dark and then the lights suddenly came up and Vicky marched onto the stage and shouted “Hello Nottingham!” and Julie and I both shouted “Hello Vicky!” [laughter] and the director came out and it was the only time he got cross with us. He was absolutely furious because this was like a really important rehearsal that they were doing. The only time we’ve ever got in trouble. We’ve tried getting in trouble a lot. This is the only time we really got in trouble.
A bit about the quality of it. Because I’ve done a bit of performing. I do a bit of ukulele and singing and things away from here, but I’ve never been involved with something so well produced. The sound was incredible because we’ve got singers …I’m quite loud. We’ve got Mick who’s quite loud. We’ve got Anita, who’s got the most beautiful voice, but it’s very quiet. So all the soloists had our own head mics – so Anita’s voice boomed out just as much as all the rest of us. And then we had this string quartet with us and this amazing woman on a grand piano who played the backing music as well. So we had this live music instead of a recorded track that we normally use. It sounded absolutely wonderful. Mark De-Lissa, we were really lucky having him, have you met him before?
Big thing is to get people warmed up before they sing and at the Concert Hall two and a half thousand people were going to be singing with us. We weren’t singing on our own, you know, so Mark De-Lissa got them warmed up and it went on for 10 minutes this warm-up and it’s just absolutely amazing. He does all these funny noises and things with people and when you’ve got two and a half thousand doing it …. At Splendour there were twenty-five thousand people warmed up by Mark. It was wonderful.
In this interview Chris talks about pranking Vicky and the acoustics at The Royal Concert Hall
Transcription
[Chris]: Lovely moment on the morning of the concert. They had like a dress rehearsal for Vicky, because she wasn’t there the day before. So Vicky was just checking all her words and things that she had to say (she had it all written down) and Julie and I escaped from our green room, so the auditorium was completely empty, Julia and I escaped just to see what was going on and we got in through one of the back doors of the auditorium and went in. It was all dark and then the lights suddenly came up and Vicky marched onto the stage and shouted “Hello Nottingham!” and Julie and I both shouted “Hello Vicky!” [laughter] and the director came out and it was the only time he got cross with us. He was absolutely furious because this was like a really important rehearsal that they were doing. The only time we’ve ever got in trouble. We’ve tried getting in trouble a lot. This is the only time we really got in trouble.
A bit about the quality of it. Because I’ve done a bit of performing. I do a bit of ukulele and singing and things away from here, but I’ve never been involved with something so well produced. The sound was incredible because we’ve got singers …I’m quite loud. We’ve got Mick who’s quite loud. We’ve got Anita, who’s got the most beautiful voice, but it’s very quiet. So all the soloists had our own head mics – so Anita’s voice boomed out just as much as all the rest of us. And then we had this string quartet with us and this amazing woman on a grand piano who played the backing music as well. So we had this live music instead of a recorded track that we normally use. It sounded absolutely wonderful. Mark De-Lissa, we were really lucky having him, have you met him before?
Big thing is to get people warmed up before they sing and at the Concert Hall two and a half thousand people were going to be singing with us. We weren’t singing on our own, you know, so Mark De-Lissa got them warmed up and it went on for 10 minutes this warm-up and it’s just absolutely amazing. He does all these funny noises and things with people and when you’ve got two and a half thousand doing it …. At Splendour there were twenty-five thousand people warmed up by Mark. It was wonderful.
Type
Oral interview
Location of item
Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Rights
Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Contributor
Interviewers: Diane Jones and Jennifer Sherwood
Transcriber: David Chilton
Transcriber: David Chilton
