Daily Pulse

‘Oh, Wow, That’s What Live Music Is’: Young Voices Inspires Children Around The World

YV226 Mimi Rainbow photo SMALL
Scene from Young Voices performing at The O2, London. (Picture by Mimi Rainbow)

When people ask Ben Lewis what he does for a living, and he responds that he’s putting on children’s choir concerts, they usually picture a town hall with 40 kids singing to a meager audience made up mostly of their parents. But it’s not like that at all. At the time of writing, Lewis and his team had just set up shop at The O2 in London, awaiting some 8,000 kids from about 200 schools in and around the English capital, who had signed up to perform at the world-famous arena in front of their families, friends, and fans of the Young Voices – the official name for what is the largest children’s choir concert in the world.

Thousands more will sign up for additional dates at The O2, as well as other UK arenas, including Utilita Arena Sheffield, BP Pulse Live Birmingham, OVO Wembley Arena, and Co-op Live Manchester, where the Young Voices have something extra special planned: on Feb. 6, the day reggae legend Bob Marley would have celebrated his 80 birthday, 8,000 children will be performing a specially arranged Bob Marley medley on site at the brand new arena, which will be livestreamed around the globe for schools to participate in a worldwide singalong.

Young Voices have partnered with The Bob & Rita Marley Foundation, Universal Music, Island Records & Hal Leonard to enable schools to sign up for free. At the time of writing, more than 170,000 children had signed up from schools in the USA, Ireland, UK, Australia, Jamaica, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Indonesia, Hungary, Sweden, and more. “I think we’ve got about 38 countries taking part around the world, very fitting, when you think about Bob Marley’s message of freedom, love and unity,” said Lewis.

It’s obvious that Young Voices isn’t your average choir: the brand holds several Guinness World Records for its large-scale concerts that often feature children from multiple locations participating simultaneously; it hosted a 100,000-strong zoom coir with Billy Ocean during the COVID lockdowns; and it is the act, that has performed at The O2 in London more than any other act in history.

See: O2 London Dedicates Part Of Arena To ‘Young Voices’ Choir

YV1829 OJohnston 9Jan24 Sheffield 72
Ben Lewis, CEO of Young Voices. (Picture by Olivia Johnston)

Young Voices CEO Ben Lewis comes from Wales, the land of song. To this day, choirs are an integral part of the country’s cultural identity. His father used to put on large adult choir concerts. “He for instance had a 10,000 strong male voice choir in our big rugby stadium, Cardiff Arms Park, with people like Tom Jones, and Shirley Bassey performing,” Lewis remembered.

One day in 1996, after a concert in Dublin, Ireland, Lewis received mail from various local schools, suggesting to do something similar for children. “We thought it was a great idea,” he said, “so we booked The Point Theatre in Dublin, and we had 3,000 children sign up for the first show. That was in 1996, and we never did an adult concert ever again.”

And he continued, “The magic of that many children in a venue having the absolute night of their lives performing to all their mums and dads and selling out an arena just seemed such a great idea that we brought it over to the UK in the second year, 1997, and did Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham, London. And here we are, 29 years later from that first show in Dublin, doing eight nights at The O2, four at Co-op Live, OVO Arena Wembley, Utilita Arena Sheffield and bp pulse LIVE Birmingham. On this tour that we’re on now, we’ll have about 215,000 children in total signing up.”

It’s not hard to imagine what it must mean to a 10-year-old to be performing at The O2 alongside all their friends. “It’s a huge deal,” said Lewis, “to give them that opportunity to be a part of something really big, so that they could walk away and go, ‘Oh, wow, that’s what live music is.’ And they get to take that confidence and belief in themselves on into whatever they do, whether it’s music or not.”

The repertoire the children perform changes each year. “It’s really important for us, that over the course of two, three years, with children aged nine to 11, we’re introducing them to lots of different styles. One year it might be gospel and jazz, and next year it could be classical and rock,” he explained.

Participating schools receive the materials that allow them to learn the same arrangements ahead of show night, and there’s a rehearsal on the day of each concert. The teachers Lewis’ team deals with usually stay the same, if they don’t move school or change profession, so, according to Lewis, “once they do it for one year, they want to come back every year and give the experience to the children.”

Aside from the huge benefit to the participating children, a Young Voices performance is also great marketing for the venues. “Arenas, especially the ones we’ve been for a long time, really understand what it means to have Young Voices in their building, because it’s bringing the community together,” Lewis explained, “it’s bringing in a whole new generation of children – and parents – to an arena, who will likely be coming back for years to come. Yesterday I heard somebody say, that they had thought it’d be much harder to get to The O2, but now that they know how easy it is, they were planning on coming back, and seeing what else might be interesting. We definitely help that ecosystem.”

Music publishers could benefit too, even if granting Young Voices a license to perform popular songs may not be the most commercially exploitable route. Some already get it, said Lewis, “When we talked to Blue Mountain and the publishers behind the Bob Marley repertoire, they instantly got it, because Bob’s message is all about the next generation. Keeping that message alive creates the next generation of Bob Marley lovers.

“Music publishers don’t really have the same education arm that, say, book publishers do. You walk into a school and there are books everywhere, JK Rowling and Roald Dahl, all the big authors. And it’s good marketing. They aren’t getting free books into schools purely out of love for children. They know that grandma is going to go back and buy JK Rowling for Christmas. That doesn’t happen with music, because of the licensing and the commercial aspects. It’s a very lengthy process to get signed off, plus we have to rearrange songs for children’s voices, which means the writers have to clear it and all of that.”

The writers themselves usually get it, as well, “be it for Hairspray this year, where we’re working with Marc Shaiman; be it Matilda last year, where we worked with Tim Minchin. When you get to the actual writer, they’re like, ‘of course I want my song sung by some 200,000 children. Who wouldn’t?’ But the publishers have obviously got that legal element they’ve got to go through, and sometimes their job to protect the rights can get in the way of the ability for us to to share that music.”

The Young Voices are also touring the U.S. this summer, coming to MVP Arena in Albany, New York (June 2), as well as Prudential Center in New Jersey (June 3). Lewis said, “we’re looking to expand across America, where there are so many incredible arenas, and so many incredible music cities. It’s the same as when I first looked at the UK, and you talk about places like Manchester, London, and Sheffield, and all the great bands that have come out of there. When you look at America, there’s Nashville, Chicago, Detroit, these unbelievable homes of music. The first show we did in the U.S. was in New Jersey, and you just think, Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Whitney, Frankie Valli. Every state in America just has such a an incredible music history, and obviously all the genres of music, the Motowns, the jazz, the blues, the disco, hip hop, r’n’b, country – it’s a really special place to showcase what we’re doing.

Next year’s marks the Young Voices’ 30th anniversary, and Lewis expects to hit the milestone of three million children worldwide, who have participated in Young Voices so far. “That’s kind of mind-blowing when I think about it,” said Lewis, “because so many kids that performed with us are now grown ups. I meet many of them, and they all remember the music, and the special guests. Bumping into people years later from when they’ve done it, and listen to how they talk about it, that’s where I get a bit emotional.”

Subscribe to Pollstar HERE

FREE Daily Pulse Subscribe