Blake's Tour: Wavendon Concert

Blake give us their feedback following the first concert of their tour An Evening with Blake, with the Diamond School Choir at The Stables in Wavendon.

"The opening night of the Blake tour was possibly one of the best received shows that we've ever had, due in no small part, to the amazing skills of our guest choir for the night.

The 15 members of the Diamond School choir were, quite simply, brilliant. Having not had a single rehearsal with the choir before meeting them on the date for a sound check, we were astounded by how good they were. Their skills across all three songs (Jerusalem, Nessun Dorma and Hallelujah) were so polished, it took us aback on stage when we first heard them.

Here were young boys and girls, performing difficult vocal harmonies, pronouncing Italian and delivering it all with proud smiling faces. It was truly humbling for all of us in Blake, as we suddenly saw ourselves, but 20 years ago, when singing in a choir was our inspiration for a lifetime in music. There is no doubt in our mind that members of the Diamond School choir will mature to be superb solo singers in their own right.

Our experience with our first choir on this tour has shown us that we were right to give an opportunity to local choirs to get on stage with us, showing the public and Blake who the next wave of great performers might be. We've always believed that choirs are totally essential to the future of British music, and we're proud to be getting great choirs up on to some of the UK's finest stages, 25 of them in fact.

We still need more choirs for other dates on the tour though, so choirs who feel they have what it takes should send us their details asap. Perhaps we're going to discover the next Only Men Aloud, or All Angels on this tour. Wouldn't that be amazing? Fingers crossed!"