Solihull Pop Chorus sing on Broadway in New York

Seventy members of community choir Solihull Pop Chorus have just returned from performing in Total Vocal, a sell-out acapella concert in New York’s famous Lincoln Center on Broadway, conducted by Deke Sharon – renowned as the king of acapella and the producer of the three hit Pitch Perfect movies.

2,800 people packed into the stunning David Geffen Hall at the Lincoln Center to watch the show, which saw a choir of 275 people from all over the world perform Katrina and the Waves’ hit song Walking on Sunshine with one of the stars of the Pitch Perfect film, ‘Barden Bellas’ Shelley Regner.

A further 22,000 people have watched a live stream broadcast of the show and the number of views continue to rise.

The Solihull-based community choir was chosen by the organisers, DCINY, when they spotted footage of the choir recording at London’s famous Abbey Road Studios.

The choir spent a year planning the trip which involved months of learning the music and several days of rehearsals, in Manhattan, with Deke Sharon and the other star soloists.

Plans almost fell into disarray the day before the choir flew out to the US when an unexpected winter storm blanketed New York with snow, closing every single airport in the state.

Fortunately, a combination of speedy snow clearing and spring sunshine saw the airports quickly open and Solihull Pop Chorus were able to join singers from the US, Canada, Germany, India, Australia and Mexico – as well as two other British choirs – to perform arrangements of songs including Gershwin’s Summertime, U2’s I Still haven’t Found What I’m Looking For and Ariana Grande’s Dangerous Woman – without any musical instruments.

Anya Small, Director of Solihull Pop Chorus, said of the experience: “This all started as a real technical challenge, months ago, learning all of these complex acapella arrangements, which was a new discipline for us, but it ended with one of the most joyful, exciting and emotional experiences I have ever been involved in.

“It’s Solihull Pop Chorus’ fifth anniversary this year and to think we’ve grown from 15 people giving a simple two-part harmony a go, in the parish council rooms in Dickens Heath, to 70 of us performing on Broadway is just extraordinary.”

If you’d like to watch Solihull Pop Chorus perform in Total Vocal, visit the following link, look for the Total Vocal video and skip forward to Act 2 (1 hour 30 mins into the broadcast): www.facebook.com/DistinguishedConcertsInternationalNewYork