Publications
Voicelab
Jude Kelly, Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre, invited Mary to come to the Southbank Centre to begin a new initiative called Voicelab which is generously supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. She took up her post in November 2006. Since then Mary has been involved in a wide range of projects including hundreds of singers, from choral events for all-comers, through to auditioned choirs and ensembles as well as opportunities for both emerging and experienced professionals. She is also responsible for a new year-long part-time course for emerging professional singers called PULSE.

On arrival, Mary was integral in the planning and production of a special event to open the newly-refurbished Royal Festival Hall in 2007 which featured a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, involving 1600 amateur singers, in a new translation by Billy Bragg, and The Singing River, a new commission by Orlando Gough which required 500 singers to perform on boats along the Thames whilst a Voicelab choir serenaded them from the 5th Floor Balcony as they emerged onto dry land.

On the occasion of the official re-opening of the hall 600 singers reprised the Billy Bragg Beethoven 9, to welcome the Queen to the Royal Festival Hall.
 
 



Voicelab moving images

Students from Pulse
photo © P.Alex Thompson

Carmina Burana
photos © Kieron McCarron

Handel Choral Club
photo © Kieron McCarron



Other Voicelab projects which Mary has spear-headed include:
  • the selecting and training of a choir for War Oratorio: a new commission from Channel 4 with music by Dominic Muldowney
  • training a choir for Flamenco guitarist and composer Paco Peña’s Requiem for the Earth 2007
  • selecting and training a 38-piece male voice choir and then conducting them on stage with the Brit and Mercury Award-winning band Elbow, for their sell-out concert in Meltdown 2008
  • selecting and rehearsing 2 choirs for the Christmas show Lost & Found Orchestra from the founders of STOMP
  • training choirs for the Various Voices Festival in June 2009, in preparation for a mega-performance of Carmina Burana
  • forming and training a choir to sing alongside Ian Shaw as the support act for Naturally 7 , 2009 - as part of the London Jazz Festival
  • creating and training a choir for the Christmas Show of 2009 - Sandy Toksvig's Christmas Cracker
  • leading several workshops on Bernstein's West Side Story as part of the year-long Bernstein Project - which culminated in a performance of his seminal work Mass in July 2010, with a cast of over 500
  • Massive Messiah: leading an enormous chorus of 750 amateur singers who joined conductor Harry Christophers in a massed performance of Handel's famous oratorio as the centrepiece of a special Choral Weekend in May 2011, and
  • numerous workshops in a variety of styles of music

Since taking up her post, Mary has acted as casting director and vocal coach for a number of professional Southbank Centre productions, including Carmen Jones (Summer 2007), The Wizard of Oz (Summer 2008), and the acclaimed BBC Concert Orchestra production of Kurt Weill’s Lost in the Stars. The Independent singled out Mary's work, saying "Mary King (vocal coach and casting director) should be applauded for nursing a richly diverse group of voices through this difficult, searching, angular music."