Hallelujah heroes

Can Gareth Malone's novice singers raise the roof with Handel's Messiah?

- HANNAH DAVIES, IAN MACEWAN, REBECCA FLETCHER

Gareth Malone is embarking on one of the biggest musical challenges of his career this Easter – coaching untrained singers to perform George Frideric Handel's Messiah alongside a world-class orchestra and chorus.

In Gareth Malone's Messiah, a two-part BBC1 documentary showing on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, the popular choirmaster selects eight people who have never sung in a classical choir and begins the arduous task of teaching them to sing the nation's favourite choral work.

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