Greatest Hits Five: "Moana Medley”

We promised in the blog on our Hamilton medley that we’d be returning to the work of Lin Manuel Miranda, so here we are again! This time, we are combining a true Show Choir classic formula: a composer lots of us enjoy with a sprinkling of Disney magic as we take on a medley from the 2016 smash hit film: Moana!

Inspired by Polynesian myths, the film tells the story of Moana – the daughter of a chief who is chosen by the ocean to restore the heart of the goddess Te Fiti and bring harmony back to her island home. Along the way, she learns a long-held secret about her people and joins forces with the legendary demigod Maui. The score features songs from Lin Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foa'i and Mark Mancina, who also wrote the music for the film.

Disney will always hold a special place in our Show Choir repertoire, and judging by the stats from our Top Ten vote, the Moana medley certainly does: alongside “Welcome To The Rock” from Come From Away, it was the most selected number by our cast, with 52 votes. The Show Choir arrangement features three of the films seven songs: “Know Who You Are”, “How Far I’ll Go” and “We Know The Way”. 

Disney were keen to combine traditional South Pacifc culture and music with pop and Broadway influences, and we know that every time we’ve sung it to an audience that it’s a definite crowd-pleaser. What we especially enjoy about singing this medley is the mix of emotional dynamics: “You Know Who Are” is a tender, poignant moment in the film and its story, we transition into “How Far I’ll Go” which is the spirited Moana’s “I want” song, a marked shift in tempo and feeling, before ending on the much more upbeat and joyful “We Know The Way”.

For a choir like us, singing a medley is all about keeping the transitions between songs as smooth as possible, and being mindful of the intent of the song towards the story and reflect that in our singing. It’s so easy to feel the love from Show Choir around this film and songs, there’s a real confidence and ease about it and how we present it; so the key for us here is maintaining the tempo, volume and thereby control of the song and not letting our enthusiasm run away with us, and fully understanding where each individual part of the choir fits and influences the overall sound.

The Altos generally lead us in this song, before we all come together in “We Know The Way”, so the key is precision in timing the accompanying parts so that the lyrics and melody come to the fore. If the accompanying parts speed and timing goes off kilter, the whole thing can potentially fall flat, so concentration and having the choir follow and react to each other effectively is what we strive to do. To add another element, you know we at Show Choir like to learn new languages as we sing, and parts of this medley feature lyrics in Samoan, Tokelauan and Tuvaluan languages, which are all Polynesian. As always with our songs that feature different languages: we’ve found that pure and simple repetition is the key to our success!