Gareth Malone has been obsessed with music since before he can remember. He was always playing the piano as a young child and singing has been part of his life since the very beginning.
Gareth grew up in London until he was ten, when the family moved to Bournemouth and he attended the local grammar school. It was here that his love of choirs began.
Studying Drama at the University of East Anglia Norwich, Gareth had to fit music into his spare time. But he was always in the university choir and he started composing music for theatre productions. When he finished his studies he auditioned for a postgraduate course at The Royal Academy of Music, London and after two years of very hard work, passed with distinction in 2005.
Gareth was awarded the position of Edward Heath Assistant Animateur with the London Symphony Orchestra in 2001, helping with school visits, education projects and concert presenting. He has been assistant conductor to Marin Alsop on Bernstein's Mass in June 2005 and chorus-master for Britten's St Nicolas Mass with Ian Bostridge and Laurence Cummings. gareth runs the LSO St Luke's Community and Youth Choirs which draw people from all over Hackney and Islington to the LSO's education centre in Old Street, EC1.
Alongside his animateur work he does some presenting and has made a programme called Why Do We Sing? for BBC Radio 4.
Gareth is best known for BBC2's The Choir. The series has become incredibly successful, winning BAFTAs, an RTS and a Broadcast award. The programme has given birth to new singing groups including the amazing Military Wives Choir, who topped the charts with Wherever You Are.
Gareth has written two books - Music for the People, an entertaining introduction to classical music, and Choir: Tears, Triumphs and Transformations, a look behind the scenes of The Choir TV series.