Various Artists

The Chorus (Les Choristes) [Soundtrack]

About this Album

This album is no longer available from Nonesuch Records.

The 2005 Miramax Films’ release The Chorus (Les Choristes) prominently features original choral music by composer Bruno Coulais (Winged Migration, Microcosmos, Harrison’s Flowers), performed by Lyon’s Petits Chanteurs de Saint Marc, and introduces 13-year-old actor / vocal soloist Jean-Baptiste Maunier. A smash box-office hit in France, The Chorus (Les Choristes) takes place in 1949 post-War France. In an end-of-the-line school for troubled boys, a mild-mannered new teacher, Clement Mathieu (Gérard Jugnot), arrives and finds himself surrounded by prepubescent thieves, liars, and rebels. When Mathieu introduces these delinquents to the pleasure of music, he discovers there is far more to these children than anyone believed. The Chorus marks the feature film debut of writer/director Christophe Barratier.

The Chorus (Les Choristes) was the French entry for Best Foreign Film for the 2004 Academy Awards and was screened at film festivals throughout the US; it opened in American theaters on January 14, 2005. The Chorus (Les Choristes): Music from the Motion Picture comprises entirely original music composed by Coulais, with two songs by writer/director Christopher Barratier, who also has a musical background. One of the songs, "Vois sur ton chemin," was also nominated for an Oscar.

Coulais’s score, which Agence France Presse calls “cherubic,” was a surprise best seller in France, reaching number one on the album charts. In composing the simple music, Coulais worked closely with the boys of the Petits Chanteurs choir, its conductor Nicholas Porte, and Maunier, the soloist whom Variety calls “a real find.” The film and soundtrack have made Maunier a star in France and have sparked an unprecedented revival of interest in youth choirs. By the time it was released in the United States, the soundtrack had sold more than one million copies in France alone.