Greatest Hits Seven: "Hello!"
Next up on our countdown of Bristol Show Choir’s Greatest Hits: “Hello!” from The Book of Mormon. Premiering on Broadway in 2011, after seven years of development, the show has gone on to gross over $500 million, making it one of the most successful Broadway musicals of all time!
A collaboration between Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone, the musical is a satirical look at the belief and practises of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but ultimately explores the power of love and service; as the audience follow two missionaries: Elder Price and Elder Cunningham in their attempts to preach the faith of the church to a remote village in Uganda. Parker and Stone created the comedy South Park, whilst Lopez co wrote the music for the musical Avenue Q. Opening to rave reviews and a raft of awards including nine Tony awards and a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album, the Broadway production paved the way for various US tours, and the show opened on the West End in 2013, where it calls the Prince of Wales theatre home!
Your blogger was surprised to see this one pop up as one of Show Choir’s Top Ten, but that’s only because I found it so fiddly to learn and master the first time around! “Hello” opens the show and features Elder Price leading his classmates in a demonstration of the method of going door to door to speak about their faith and encourage people to convert.
The song features a lot of moving parts: lyrics that change subtely between verses, challenges around timing, speed and characterisation, and all of these ring true with our Show Choir arrangement as well; and when it works really well it’s a real crowdpleaser! The tune here is passed around between the Sopranos, Altos and Tenors, with the Bass part anchoring the rest of the choir. When you don’t have the tune to sing, the challenge comes in the fact that within your accompanying parts, you often give cues as to when the other parts need to come in, or react to you: so you really need to concentrate and listen to each other. There’s also the temptation to speed up the tempo, which can potentially affect the diction, which means the humour gets lost- the jokes are in the words so they need to be crystal clear. Volume has also been a learning curve for us, knowing when to grow and strip it back so the song has somewhere to go in terms of dynamics. The best advice to get this one locked down: practise, practise and practise some more!
