A Wishaw-based choir hailed Holywood icon Hugh Jackman a “total gent” after they performed on stage with him last week.
SoundSational, who have a base in Craigneuk, were amazed when they received a call from his production team asking them to join The Greatest Showman star on stage as part of his world tour.
The community choir, who have a total of 150 members, selected just 50 to perform at Glasgow’s SSE Hydro in front of 13,000 gig-goers.
Wishaw’s Maureen Murray was one of the talented members of the choir who performed.
She said: “Such an amazing emotional experience from start to finish. It was a total privilege to take part in, something I will never forget and enjoy reliving over and over again. I can’t wait for my next SoundSational adventure.”
Rosarra Ford of Motherwell was also in the choir, and she said: “For me it was an amazing experience, to be included in something as special as this. It was fabulous and something I’ll never forget. I’m so excited to see what’s next for SoundSational.”
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The choir were chosen by Jackman after he had been impressed by their BBC performance of This Is Me – from his movie The Greatest Showman – which Soundsational had been filmed singing at a special event in the city’s Central Station for International Women’s Day and BBC Music Day.
SoundSational musical director and founder Tommy Chambers said: “We uploaded a video of our choir singing a song from The Greatest Showman in response to an online appeal for community choirs.
“I got an email at 2.30am in the morning from Hugh’s production team asking if I was free to chat to them. They told me they had selected our choir and would we be interested in doing it. I jumped at the chance. The next thing, three choral and orchestra scores were sent to me, branded with ‘Hugh Jackman World Tour 2019’.”
The choir had just weeks to rehearse three songs – You Will Be Found, from the Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen; One Day More from Les Miserables; and A Million Dreams from The Greatest Showman.
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Tommy said: “We meet in St Andrew’s High School in Coatbridge to rehearse and had to up our game with more rehearsal timings. It was a daunting task, but something we enjoyed every minute of. Hugh was a total gent and any interaction he had with the choir was amazing. He was an inspiration to them all and put them at ease.
“Our choir are from all walks of life and have normal jobs and to be performing in front of 13,000 people at the Hydro was a great experience. Everyone took something different from the experience, it was fantastic.”
SoundSational was the brainchild of Tommy, who ten years ago, wanted to make music more accessible. Since then, numbers have gone from 12 to 150.
The choir are set to host a taster session to recruit new members on Saturday, May 25. There will be three sessions (11am-12,30pm, 1pm-2.30pm and 3pm-4.30pm) with spaces for 20 people at each in the Foundry Music Lab, Unit 2 Flemington Industrial Park, Motherwell.
