The John Griff column: When a collision of musical talents brings more than musical harmony

It’s music.

‘If music be the food of love, play on…’ is the quote from Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’ – Count Orsino delivers the line with regard to his love for the Countess Olivia. For countless composers, performers, lovers and others who seek to make a living from it, what Bill Shakes wrote in 1602 certainly holds good if the numbers are to be believed. But there’s more to it that that and its here where the notion of language comes in. It’s also where, I suggest, music trumps the mathematics of the 8 note octave (and chromatic notes in between) into melodies, themes, harmonies and rhythms set against a certain number of beats per minute to give that language its universal standing.

On Saturday night last weekend, the results of months of hard work in developing a show which called on over 200 voices arranged into 5 choirs, a house band, a string quartet, a bespoke front and backstage crew and others, finally came together. Called ‘COLLIDE: A Choirfest Experience’, the show assembled a cast of performers from a variety of genres including rock, pop, gospel, classical, opera, the spoken word, signing and more to Royal and Derngate. In front of an appreciative capacity audience and backed by West Northamptonshire Council, those performers – many of whom had been on site for about 8 hours beforehand – tore through a wide-ranging schedule of musical offerings. Delighted to be on board myself as one of the hosts of the show with the wonderful Rubee Rose as my partner (truly the ‘Queen of Collide’), I watched as time after time the audience got to its feet to applaud the performers in front of it and to participate with them. But this was not an evening of only fast paced or raucous entertainment. Far from it. Instead, the evening took on more thoughtful moments as well, taking the crowd on a musical journey and delivering them to a finale of the Joe Cocker classic ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’. And by that stage, we all were.

One of those more thought-provoking moments of the evening came about accidentally from a couple of young performers. Sophie and Isabella are two of the county’s bright stars at the Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts Trust. Called on to deliver spoken and signed excerpts from the 1964 seminal Martin Luther King speech ‘I Have A Dream’, both had got started to an accompaniment by the excellent Marten String Quartet when the show’s Artistic Director Paul Boldeau and the wider audience realised the same thing – the microphone the girls were using hadn’t been switched on and nobody could hear anything except the accompaniment. Striding out onto the stage (Sophie and Isabella were positioned high up above the stage and a long way from the string quartet), Paul brought everything to halt, explained what had happened, why there would be a short wait while the technicals were reset and that he wanted ‘to do the girls and their performances justice’. The audience roared its approval and within a few seconds the performance got going again, sonic normality having been established. Both girls rightly got a standing ovation at the final curtain calls – regaining their composure brilliantly.

During the evening we marked a 90th birthday for one of the members of the Northampton Male Voice Choir. John Hames has been with the group for just under 40 years – and when Jerry, the drummer and leader of house band High Energy sparked up the beat to Steve Wonder’s ‘Happy Birthday To You’, not a voice in the auditorium was silent, joining in in deafening celebration.

There was more too. If you cast your mind back to 2018 and the royal wedding, you might recall the astonishing Kingdom Choir which performed the Ben E King classic ‘Stand By Me’, directed by Karen Gibson MBE and her fantastically metallic silver hair. Requested by the then Prince of Wales to perform at his youngest son’s wedding to his bride, Karen Gibson reprised her role on Saturday night as a special guest of COLLIDE, bringing with her the soloist Paul Lee who again led the vocals, backed by the wonderful Northamptonshire Sings Out choir. Karen had drilled the four choirs performing on the night (Northampton Male Voice Choir, Queen Eleanor Choir, Collide Gospel Choir and NSO) in a number of masterclass events. As one giant fifth choir they would ultimately be joined by the audience to make a sixth for two finale pieces, by which stage the event had turned into something of a sing-off, leaving the assembled throng demanding more. Only Royal and Derngate’s own curfew prevented it, otherwise we might all still be there now, singing at the top of our voices.

For a long time, it has been said that music making – on any scale and in any form – is positively good for body and mind. This, I can confirm, from personal experience. That’s because music speaks to the spirit and lifts hearts in a way that I certainly don’t think mathematics ever can, or will, to the majority of people. Saturday night proved the very real positivity which came from having people from across the spectrum of diversity all working together – joining together – in a shared experience. In a very real sense, there was harmony – and I don’t mean just musically.

Well done to WNC who have indicated that COLLIDE will return in 2025. Get your tickets as soon as you can – it’ll be quite a ride.