Laura (Upper Sixth) is proud to be the opening soloist on the newly released festive musical track from the National Youth Training Choir (NYTC), ‘How Do You Fly?’.
The original Jamie Cullum orchestration has been re-imagined by composer Harry Baker and Conductor Greg Beardsell as an eight-part a cappella piece and reflects on the wonderous journey of Father Christmas around the starlit world on Christmas Eve. There is a focus on the potential within us all to achieve the incredible and the choir of 15-18 year old singers bring alive a sense of magic and innocent Christmas joy.
Laura was surprised to be chosen for the opening part, exclaiming: “I hadn’t expected it at all! This is the third solo I’ve done with NYTC but was fully just expecting one of the little solos in the other pieces. Our conductor, Greg, held the auditions and supported everyone who was trying and I was so happy when I found out! It was also incredible to see that Jamie Cullum himself had heard the track and my solo!”
Recording the track was pretty hectic. We recorded four singles in that one day and they each took about two and a half hours. The day started with another single that will be coming out next year and ended with the one that’s just released! We were put into our sections with mics scattered around the choir and we did each piece at least five times in different ways to see what sounded the best to the sound engineer and eventually we were told the take was perfect!”
I love how the National Youth Choir enables us to hear and sing different music styles, languages and composers works. The choir is literally a big family and everyone is so supportive; I’ve come off every single course I’ve done upset that I had to leave! National Youth Choir is an organisation that emboldens young performers and makes people realise their potential.
At Leighton Park the staff in the Music Department are all so encouraging and really want what’s best for us. The Department are always open to questions about music and are happy to support us however we may need, and this in combination with NYC has been perfect for my musical journey.”
You can hear Laura on the recording of ‘How Do You Fly?’ on Apple Music, Spotify or on YouTube.
Take the next step by selecting an option below, or if you want to drop us a quick message, you can do so with the form.
Δ