Gareth Malone on Messiah and why he walked away from US success: "I had a real case of burnout"

Gareth Malone is back conducting choral music on our screens; as infectiously enthusiastic and impossibly youthful-looking as ever. The Peter Pan of Do-Re-Mi is attempting to coax classical perfection from eight absolute beginners, who’ve never before sung in a classical choir. In just seven weeks from first audition, the novice singers will join the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales for a performance of Handel’s Messiah in Cardiff’s Llandaff Cathedral.

It sounds like a huge undertaking, and one that the choirmaster takes very seriously. "It’s about eight people encountering Handel; I chose it because of that. It’s a very wholesome thing to do." But it’s also embedded within his core: "Messiah is a text I’ve known my whole life. I was introduced to it by my parents; they would sing the Halleluiah Chorus while doing the washing up."

After listening to it on vinyl, he was taken to see Handel’s most famous oratorio performed. "I was seven or eight. I don’t wish to denigrate TV or radio, but it’s not the same as going to the Royal Festival Hall and hearing a massive orchestra play and a choir of 200 sing.

"From an early age, I had very powerful reactions to music. I was overwhelmed by it. I still am. Handel comes from a deep place. It is sincere. It is considered, but there is also a lightness to it. He wrote it in a hurry; almost as if he had divine inspiration. You can see it from the score. It transmits that energy when you are conducting and performing it."

That energy is very much not the sort of thing you can get from artificial intelligence. "AI," he snorts. "It’s a tool. So is a hammer, but you don’t use it all day. As a child, I grew cress. We made a sandwich with it, and I ate it. That was enormous for me. I did something in the real world, not via a screen.

"You can’t get a computer to sing Messiah and be in an orchestra. It’s organic, and real, and moving. Tech is useful, but when I turn to my piano, it’s real and vibrating."

Malone, best known for series such as The Choir: Military Wives and Boys Don’t Sing, used to be on our screens every year. And then he wasn’t. He was in talks to do his choral magic in the States, but in 2017 chose to walk away. "I had a real case of burnout. I was on a treadmill, going from one project to another. Each got bigger and bigger, and you got to the point when you didn’t have anything bigger to give. Launching in America was very much part of that." Then came something utterly unplanned: the pandemic.

"I didn’t earn any money in 2021 because of Covid. The first year was OK but then, suddenly, all TV, all commissioning, ground to a halt. I was just at home. I got back into the minutiae of looking after the kids, getting their swimming kit ready, cooking their supper. I don’t regret it, because it gave me five years of being at home.” All that sounds great, but what about his creation, Gareth Malone, Boyish Choral Superstar? Did he worry that the public might forget him?

"One hundred per cent," he says, with a candour that’s unusual from a celebrity. "One hundred per cent. My livelihood has been 'being Gareth Malone on TV.'" He pauses. Was it a crisis? "Yes, it was." Was he panicking? "Yes, I was. I definitely had moments of panic." How did he manage? "I confided in my wife [English teacher Becky Malone]. That’s what partners are there for." Plus, routine. "I would force myself to get up, put a clean shirt on and go to work in my studio. I would work on music and try to generate projects." And then what?

More anxiety. "I panicked that it was all about the streamers, or iPlayer, and nobody was watching TV. I would read [trade magazine] Broadcast, which would be all doom and gloom." Did he fear he was not diverse enough – too white, too male, too classically orientated?

"I’d be lying if I said that didn’t cross my mind. All those demons cross your mind. The one that really concerned me was overfamiliarity. I tried not to spread myself too thinly, but… Anyway, I would work on my music, and try to generate projects. And, slowly but surely, stuff started to happen."

Alongside his wife, one other person helped him: the 17th-century composer Johann Sebastian Bach (Malone took on Bach’s St John Passion for his Easter 2024 series). "I’d listen to Bach. His music is perfect. And he understood loss and grief. Music is always the thing I come back to. That’s what drives me." And now? "Post-Covid, everything has been more solid. I just know what I am about now. I’m passionate about music education and music."

Like many others, including the pop singer Ed Sheeran, Malone fears that future generations are in danger of missing out, due to a dearth of music education at state schools. "What music does is promote feelings of success. You do one rehearsal, and another, and you feel as if you’re achieving something.

"I’ve been in music education for 30 years, and I’ve not seen any sea change by any government. I hoped my work might bang the drum for the importance of music; it’s essential to us as human beings. It has the potential to change lives. It’s not just an add-on."

We discuss the fact that Cardiff University recently closed its School of Music. "Wales, the land of song! That was announced when we were recording this series there. It's so sad. Some of our singers in the Chorus of Wales were students at Cardiff University. We led the world in music for years. Now it’s getting to a tipping point." He pauses, exasperated.

"We all know what it takes to make a musician; it’s a lifetime of commitment and experience. We now have a mental health crisis. Why is music not promoted? Why not give someone a violin and encourage them to play? Why not get the lives of young people to be more fun and rewarding before the crisis hits? Nobody remembers doing maths on a Thursday. But young people all remember when they sang in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat."

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Gareth Malone's Messiah airs on BBC One and iPlayer on Friday 18th April.

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