A Welsh Children’s Chorus

The children’s chorus Only Kids Aloud was founded especially for a performance with the Mariinsky Theatre under the baton of Valery Gergiev at the Donald Gordon Hall of the Wales Millennium Centre planned for 1 April 2012. On the eve of this event, maestro Gergiev has personally invited eighty-five children between the ages of nine and thirteen to come to St Petersburg to perform Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, also known as the Symphony of a Thousand, together with soloists of the Mariinsky Opera Company, Chorus and Orchestra. Among those appearing in the performance will be Viktoria Yastrebova, Anastasia Kalagina, Lyudmila Dudinova, Nadezhda Serdyuk, Zlata Bulycheva, Stanislav Leontiev, Alexei Markov and Yevgeny Nikitin.

The chorus Only Kids Aloud is a joint project of the Wales Millennium Centre and Tim Rhys-Evans, Music Director of the chorus Only Men Aloud, which travelled throughout Wales last year in search of young talent. Over three hundred school pupils took part in the auditions. Rehearsals began relatively recently. “The news that we were coming to Russia was met most enthusiastically!” Time Rhys-Evans commented. “The opportunity to perform in one of the greatest theatres in the world, the most important music venue in St Petersburg, is just amazing! The kids are really looking forward to this trip, but I think it will take a few more years before they really understand its significance.”

In 2008 the Millennium Centre concluded a contract on strategic partnership with the Mariinsky Theatre for the coming five years. Conrad Lynch, Artistic Director of the Centre, commented on the common aims, namely “to seek out and encourage future generations of talent, both here in Wales and in Russia. We aim to run joint creative and artistic projects and I am delighted that today the Centre can give the Only Kids Aloud chorus a unique opportunity, thanks to which young singers from all over Wales can take part in such a striking event.”

Maestro Gergiev holds great hopes that “the children will remember this performance for the rest of their lives” and is certain that the “magical sounds and unique harmony they experience will be an amazing discovery for them.”

The Mariinsky Theatre’s tour to Great Britain will last from 31 March to 6 April, and in addition to Mahler’s Eighth Symphony the Only Kids Aloud chorus will take part in a performance of Richard Wagner’s opera Parsifal. More detailed information on the tour programme will be published at a later date.