Performing Under Pressure

Almost every day during term at the University of Cambridge, about an hour northeast of London, a group of small boys walks in "crocodile" formation for half a mile across town. They leave their school and walk briskly across the "Backs," over the River Cam and then onto the crunchy gravel of the path through King's College. As they round Gibbs Building into King's Court, with its jaw-droppingly beautiful view of King's College Chapel, it's obvious that something is different today. Instead of the usual gaggle of students avoiding the start of class, or tourists staring open-mouthed at the early 16th-century Chapel, hundreds of people are standing in line, hoping for a coveted seat at the service that will soon begin.

But the boys don't stop. They may catch the sheer exuberance in the air and break out into a grin. They may scan the crowd with their eyes searching for their families or for friends who graduated last year and who traditionally try to make it to the front of the line. But they are not permitted to stop, let alone pose for photos.

These boys are a throwback to a different time. In their short gowns, stiff white collars, and top hats—"Etons," the clothes are called—they look Dickensian. But they are small boys with one big difference. They are choristers at King's College and they are about to perform live to a worldwide audience of millions.

Inside the Chapel, they are joined by 14 Lay Clerks, the formal title for the young men who provide the countertenor, tenor, and bass lines, and who have been entertaining the line with close-harmony arrangements of Christmas carols ("It helps us to relax in the build-up to the red light," says one former choral scholar). All are students at King's College, one of 31 colleges at the University of Cambridge. Some are music majors; others study a range of subjects in parallel with the almost daily commitment of singing in the Chapel Choir.

Director of music Stephen Cleobury is already in the Chapel. He has experienced this particular "red light" moment every Christmas Eve since 1980, and Christmas 2005 will mark his 25th year. If he's nervous, it doesn't show. The boys are excited and, although they are all only between 9 and 12 years old, they appreciate the gravity of the task ahead of them.

Just after 3:00 p.m. local time, Cleobury indicates that one of the boys in front of him should step forward and sing:

"Once in royal David's city
Stood a lowly cattle shed..."

Those simple words, sung by an unaccompanied chorister, are a signal the world over that the Christmas season has begun. The Lessons and Carols service has been broadcast annually since 1930 and in the United States since 1979. Although there are 16 choristers, normally only the older boys—aged 11 or 12—are capable of singing under such pressure.

Selecting the Soloist

After several years in the Choir, the ability of a chorister to perform in almost any circumstance is phenomenal, so ingrained that several years ago, when a chorister went down with a sore throat minutes before the service started, an ex-chorister who had left the Choir the previous summer was pulled out of the line and sang the live service, unrehearsed, alongside his former choirmates. (That ex-chorister went on to become an organ scholar and undergraduate at King's College.)

"It varies from year to year as to how many 'possibles' there are," says Cleobury. "I try to make sure they are all well rehearsed, and I choose one who has a good track record of being confident in solo singing." According to Cleobury, "Thorough preparation is the key to avoiding nerves." After decades of closely observing choristers as they sing and play, he is well practiced at selecting boys whom he believes are temperamentally suited to the life of the chorister, as well as musically inclined. Even at the age of seven, he says, "I try to assess at the audition stage and choose those whom I think will not freeze in public."

"I try to build their confidence," says Cleobury. "It is important not to thrust them into the solo limelight until they are ready." In any case, no chorister sings in a service until he has been in the Choir for at least a year. Those first years, he is known as a "probationer," a true apprentice who learns alongside his more seasoned 11- or 12-year-old colleagues. Probationers receive intensive musical training at the King's College School, so that once they enter the Choir, they are able to sight-sing flawlessly, and they continue to be taught general music separate from the non-choristers in the school, who are in the majority.

The King's Sound

The choristers sing in chapel five days a week and twice on Sunday during each of the eight-week terms at Cambridge University. Their school terms are several weeks longer and the boys continue to rehearse for an hour a day at school, even when there are no services, only occasionally using the universal choral signal of raising their hand when they know they have made a mistake. Before services they rehearse again, in the Chapel, and it is surely their constant exposure to the extraordinary vaulted space that draws out their unique and celestial sound. "The King's voice has traditionally been pure and without vibrato," says Cleobury, "but I personally am not against the use of vibrato for expressive purposes."

That pure sound is also consistent throughout services, recordings, and tours, even though the Choir renews itself completely every four years or so. Cleobury's insistence on directing almost every rehearsal—despite a punishing schedule that includes being chief conductor of the BBC Singers, conductor of the Cambridge University Musical Society, and numerous other engagements in the U.K. and overseas—must also help. He is a deeply focused choral trainer, gently aiding choristers through complex foreign texts and music from several centuries.

There is simply no room for error at King's. The pressure of the "red light" is intense, so much so that every generation of choristers and choral scholars learns that, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, listeners on the West Coast of the United States (grabbing their first coffee of the day) hear the sound of the Choir before those at the west end of the Chapel, listening as the sun goes down.

Work Hard, Play Hard

Disciplined they may be, down to the careful distribution of sharpened pencils at the beginning of each rehearsal, but the choristers also play hard. Although they have some restrictions placed on their sports activities, they are always eager to kick a soccer ball around, especially on one of their regular international tours, like the time they played against barefoot boys from a farm school in the South African bush (the Africans were much better). They while away long bus rides with videogames instead of a vocal score, and they listen to pop and rock.

"With the young choristers we 'manage' [their extracurricular activities]" says Cleobury, "and monitor their activities quite closely. We try to encourage rest and exercise and good dietary habits." Cleobury hopes to have chosen students who can organize priorities themselves, but he remains alert to the need to "intervene and support when necessary."

British schools are no longer the province of the proverbial "stiff upper lip." "Schools today have very good pastoral support systems," says Cleobury, referring to the guidance the choristers receive at school, and to the "matrons" who tend to the choristers' domestic needs as school boarders.

Lessons, Carols, and Mincemeat Pies

But back in the Chapel, the boys are nothing less than seasoned professionals. Knowing that around 200 million people around the world are tuning in to listen to you is in equal measure a humbling and terrifying experience. "Stephen cleverly structures the rehearsals in preparation for the big day such that most of the music has been sung in a service or concert in the run-up to the service," says one choral scholar. With the exception, that is, of the new commission each year, which receives its first public performance live on Christmas Eve. Recent composers have included James McMillan, Stephen Paulus, and Arvo Part.

As the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols continues, the bloom of the magnificent medieval stained glass fades with the dusk and the Chapel is enveloped in candlelight. At the conclusion of the service, the euphoric choristers and choral scholars rush across King's Court to wolf down mincemeat pies and cups of tea before watching "Carols from King's" on BBC Television, a shortened and prerecorded version of the service. They still have to sing Eucharist on Christmas morning before they can leave for vacation, by which time Cleobury is exhausted, but satisfied. "My own task at King's," he says, "is to create good singers without overdoing the technical input, and to teach them skills of musicianship and a love of a broad range of repertoire."

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This article is adapted from The Voice, Summer 2005.