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Mark De-Lisser: The Story Behind the Sound · Midlife Choirsis

• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to Midlife Choirsis.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: My name is Kerrie Polkinghorne, and today I am joined by Sought After Choral Director and Vocal Coach Mark De-Lisser.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: He has worked with the likes of Ariana Grande, Jesse J and Beverly Knight.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Since 2008, Mark has been involved in a vast array of TV shows as everything from vocal coach to music director to presenter and host.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Some of these shows are 'Our Dementia Choir' with Vicky McClure, 'The Masked Singer', and 'The Voice UK'.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: If you watched the King's Coronation Concert, the Queen's Platinum Jubilee Music Extravaganza, or one of the millions tuned in to Prince Harry's Wedding, you'll have heard of some of Mark's arrangements.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Alongside teaching, choral directing, vocal arranging, and numerous TV appearances, Mark is also an established author.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: He co-wrote 'Inspire Your Choir: 100 Ways to Raise the Bar', and his popular nine book 'Sing Out' series is used by choir leaders everywhere, including myself.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Mark's here to chat to me about his story and his passion for choir singing, which you'll hear shine through every part of this interview.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: And I really hope you find some inspiration for yourself and your choir.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Well, a big welcome to Mark De-Lisser.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Welcome, Mark.
• 1:24
  Speaker: Oh, hey.
• 1:24
  Speaker: Well, thank you for having me, Kerrie.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: It's a real privilege to be able to talk to you today, and I really appreciate your time chatting to me.
• 1:31
  Speaker: If we're q if we're talking choirs, then you know I can talk choirs all day long.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Mark, I just wondered if you could tell us a bit about yourself.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Some of our listeners would have already heard about you and know some of the things that you've done, but there will be some who haven't heard of you.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: And I wondered if you could just maybe tell us a little bit about how you came to music and choir directing.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Was that a linear path for you when you were growing up?
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: You just went straight into it, or were you heading in a different direction and came to it in another way?
• 1:58
  Speaker: How many times was I heading in a different direction, Kerrie?
• 2:01
  Speaker: That's the question.
• 2:02
  Speaker: It all started for me at church, really.
• 2:05
  Speaker: That was kind of the the openings of my my choir life.
• 2:09
  Speaker: And my dad, God rest his soul, he passed September 2025.
• 2:13
  Speaker: He introduced me to choirs by taking me one evening to his male voice choir rehearsal.
• 2:21
  Speaker: What I thought was gonna be a really boring, you know.
• 2:23
  Speaker: I was just like, why am I why am I even here?
• 2:25
  Speaker: Why am I why am I going?
• 2:26
  Speaker: I was seven years old.
• 2:27
  Speaker: I don't really want to do this.
• 2:28
  Speaker: I don't want to sit around for two hours watching old men sing.
• 2:31
  Speaker: This is gonna be really boring.
• 2:32
  Speaker: Anyway, I went and I saw the gentleman conducting what was ultimately old men on this this stage in this church, and I thought, man, that is so cool.
• 2:45
  Speaker: He is so good.
• 2:47
  Speaker: And I couldn't understand why I was so blown away by it.
• 2:51
  Speaker: But it's not until years later, you remember that that moment of kind of realization that actually the choir director is a really important part of this.
• 3:02
  Speaker: And you know, and I guess my my my fascination was that this choir director was getting these sounds out of what I saw as old men, and I remember just going, wow, that's incredible.
• 3:12
  Speaker: And so that was the start of the journey, and then years later, I started uh conducted my choir at church, and then just continued doing that and just having a really great time.
• 3:24
  Speaker: And and then I I went out and took that further, doing other other things with choirs outside, and then it's just grown from there, and I wanted to do choir work and singing coaching and stuff, and but my parents were a bit like, I mean, this is isn't such there's so much to this story, but my parents were just like there's no money in that, you've got to go and get a proper job, you know, an accountant, a doctor, a solicitor, or whatever.
• 3:47
  Speaker: And and I Get a real job, yeah.
• 3:50
  Speaker: Yeah, and I kind of tried that for a few years and hated it, and then you know, just decided actually I'm gonna do this full time, much to the annoyance of my parents, really.
• 4:00
  Speaker: But but they supported me, and fortunately I I kind of came good, you know.
• 4:05
  Speaker: So and I've been doing this now, goodness, professionally since goodness, 26 years, maybe 27 years.
• 4:13
  Speaker: I've been doing this full time, and it's a it's an absolute joy.
• 4:16
  Speaker: So, yeah, so we yeah the path was never straight.
• 4:19
  Speaker: It was never like Mark came out of the womb and he was a choir director and did that.
• 4:24
  Speaker: But I but it was very, very much so sewn into my DNA, I guess, by my dad from a very, very young age.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: You did some IT, didn't you?
• 4:33
  Speaker: I did, I did.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, surely you found that that's been very helpful in your approach as well, having all those skills.
• 4:38
  Speaker: Well, one of the things that I that I think it it did give me working in the field was the ability to work with people.
• 4:47
  Speaker: Because I and I I tell this story and I'm I'm I'm very fond of all of the people that I worked with.
• 4:52
  Speaker: So I tell I tell a few stories about people that I used to work with.
• 4:55
  Speaker: I have to caveat this and say that they were lovely.
• 4:57
  Speaker: They were absolutely brilliant, wonderful, amazing people, but some of which I'm still in contact with today.
• 5:03
  Speaker: But what it got me to understand is that people that work in IT, especially where I was, and I was in a development centre, so as lots of coders and and and and you know, deep programmers, right?
• 5:15
  Speaker: Communication isn't their strongest point.
• 5:18
  Speaker: And I remember, and I'll give you this story because it will tell you everything about who some of these people were and why it taught me that actually, regardless of who you are, I have to be able to communicate with you in a certain way to get the job done.
• 5:31
  Speaker: Yeah, and so those are that's one of the biggest skills that I remember uh getting from from working in IT for three years was the ability to communicate with people who are who struggle to communicate.
• 5:40
  Speaker: Now, his is a really great story for you.
• 5:42
  Speaker: I hope it resonates.
• 5:43
  Speaker: But I remember one Monday morning we would always have a team meeting, and I brought the team together, and one guy who has remained a friend, he comes in and he's overjoyed.
• 5:53
  Speaker: He's like the happiest person in the world.
• 5:56
  Speaker: And I'm like, you know, I mean, I'm again, I'm not an, IT isn't in my DNA, right?
• 6:01
  Speaker: Choirs is in my DNA.
• 6:03
  Speaker: So I'm like, oh, you you are feel like you've had a great weekend.
• 6:07
  Speaker: He goes, Yeah, yeah, I have.
• 6:08
  Speaker: So I'm in my head, I'm like, okay, you know, I don't know, you you climbed Mount Everest?
• 6:13
  Speaker: I don't know, you you know, you you went on a great date?
• 6:16
  Speaker: What what what could be so exciting?
• 6:19
  Speaker: Tell me.
• 6:19
  Speaker: And he said, I managed to code 50,000 lines.
• 6:24
  Speaker: And I and I I was just like, that wasn't excited, it's not exciting for me.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Can't you feel my joy?
• 6:35
  Speaker: You know, but it's like he he was so excited by this, and I remember thinking, wow, and these are the types, these are the types of people that I was completely unaware of.
• 6:47
  Speaker: Yeah, and so for me that it was it was the skill of being able to communicate with them in such a way to get the job done when really we are poles apart.
• 6:56
  Speaker: I'm like, yeah, everyone, let's just get up and sing, you know, let's have a good time.
• 6:59
  Speaker: And he's like, No, no, no, I want to sit at home and and code 50,000 lines.
• 7:03
  Speaker: You know what I'm saying?
• 7:04
  Speaker: And so so that's one of the things it taught me.
• 7:06
  Speaker: But yes, the the skill of IT, obviously, I I have a little bit of it, enough, enough to get kind of get through.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: I love that you frame that in a way that it's actually communication with people, because obviously you make music with people, and your aim is to put together beautiful music experiences.
• 7:22
  Speaker: Well, my my philosophy is that the music isn't isn't primary.
• 7:26
  Speaker: The music is definitely secondary, sometimes tertiary.
• 7:28
  Speaker: The people, the people are primary.
• 7:32
  Speaker: Yeah, the people are the first priority.
• 7:34
  Speaker: For for me, I can talk about me as a choir choir leader.
• 7:38
  Speaker: When I go into a room, I'm not thinking about the song that we're gonna we're about to do.
• 7:42
  Speaker: I'm looking around and looking at the people, like, okay, what's who's had a good week?
• 7:45
  Speaker: Who's had not so good a week?
• 7:46
  Speaker: Do we want to talk about that?
• 7:47
  Speaker: Do we want to, you know what I mean do we want to explore some ideas about how we can support you better?
• 7:52
  Speaker: That is the most important thing.
• 7:53
  Speaker: Then, okay, oh yeah, let's let's sing a song, guys.
• 7:56
  Speaker: You know, it's it's it's lean on me to do what I mean.
• 7:58
  Speaker: It's it's how we support each other.
• 8:00
  Speaker: And so that though, that's really super important for me.
• 8:03
  Speaker: And like I said, that that programmer, he was really important.
• 8:06
  Speaker: And after that, after that moment, I became even closer to him because I understood him more, you know.
• 8:12
  Speaker: So it's for me as a choir leader, and I always say to all choir leaders, develop the relationships with your members, but there must be boundaries, of course, but develop the relationship, get to know them, know who they are, know what makes them tick.
• 8:26
  Speaker: And obviously, we can't go too deep into each and every individual, but this is why when you've got a choir of 40 people, if two people are talking to one person, then that person's going to feel some level of support.
• 8:38
  Speaker: Does that make sense?
• 8:38
  Speaker: And if we're all doing that, if everybody has two people that they're having conversations with, or five or six or seven, then the the cohesion and the community vibe and feel is just going to continue growing and growing and growing.
• 8:52
  Speaker: That's the most important thing.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: That's really great hearing that from someone like yourself who has done, you know, amazing things, and continuing to do amazing things.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: That you're still grounded in meeting people where they're at and seeing people.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Your choir network in London, Singology, I've watched some videos of them perform and they are always so fabulous, you know, watching them move and smile and sing.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: How have you gone about building a culture of singing that balances community, like what you've said, with performance excellence?
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: How do you tread the line?
• 9:25
  Speaker: Ooh, that's a that's a really tricky one.
• 9:28
  Speaker: So I do choirs from people living with dementia, children's choirs, community choirs, right the way through to my what I call my pro choir.
• 9:37
  Speaker: And those are the guys who they very rarely see nice Mark.
• 9:41
  Speaker: This is that's not true.
• 9:42
  Speaker: Sorry, they'd all laugh at that.
• 9:43
  Speaker: They see nice Mark a lot.
• 9:45
  Speaker: But in the moment, as a pro choir, when I need you to be right at the top of your game, I'm not gonna be smiling.
• 9:54
  Speaker: Yeah, if I need you to be on stage in 30 seconds and there's 50 of you, you better start running.
• 10:01
  Speaker: That's me.
• 10:02
  Speaker: But then the grading drops all the way, all the way down to a primary school kid who's four and doesn't want to sing the song.
• 10:12
  Speaker: And I'm like, that's okay, Billy.
• 10:15
  Speaker: Don't worry, it's fine, you know, because that experience is just to get them on the stage, and whether they sing it or not, they've had an experience on the stage.
• 10:25
  Speaker: So there's a there's a wide scale of how I do that.
• 10:29
  Speaker: Now, if we're talking specifically about Singology, the community choirs, I am very, very easy with them in rehearsals because it's about the connections that they make, it's about their support of each other, it's about that cohesion that comes from them knowing each other even more.
• 10:48
  Speaker: So I'm super easy.
• 10:49
  Speaker: We learn some songs, we have a great time, we eat some cake, we drink some drink, we go away, and you know, the following week we come back, and it's just like, oh, this is so nice, and then we got a performance coming up, and so I took I tell them next week, ladies and gentlemen, is rehearsal for performance, and they get it, and then we turn the room around.
• 11:10
  Speaker: So the room then becomes not me at the front teaching them, but they come to the front and I sit in an aud as the audience.
• 11:18
  Speaker: Does that make sense?
• 11:19
  Speaker: Right, and we turn the heat up now.
• 11:22
  Speaker: They'll hate me for saying this because I'm exposing them now if they do listen to this podcast, which I'm sure they will.
• 11:27
  Speaker: They talk a lot, they talk a lot, okay?
• 11:31
  Speaker: And I don't mind it.
• 11:32
  Speaker: I really don't mind it, but they talk even in performance, yeah?
• 11:36
  Speaker: And so we've got to a place now where I'm like, guys, this is now in this rehearsal, this is not any longer the space that we are rehearsing in.
• 11:46
  Speaker: This is on stage.
• 11:47
  Speaker: So everything we do in here has to be of a level.
• 11:51
  Speaker: So we just create an environment where it's performance, performance, performance.
• 11:54
  Speaker: And if anybody's talking in between songs, they get a really, really, really bad look from me.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: But they've been warned, so they know.
• 12:07
  Speaker: Communicate the song, feel it, move.
• 12:10
  Speaker: Now, as a choir leader, I like to move.
• 12:12
  Speaker: Okay, I really like to move.
• 12:14
  Speaker: I'm I'm not saying I'm the best dancer, but music comes on, I'm always gonna move about.
• 12:18
  Speaker: So when I'm in front of my choir, I'm gonna get them moving as well.
• 12:21
  Speaker: And so they just move with me.
• 12:23
  Speaker: Yeah, they move with me.
• 12:24
  Speaker: It might be a step, a step touch or a step click or a hand clap or whatever it might be, they move with me.
• 12:29
  Speaker: And I always encourage choir leaders to do that.
• 12:31
  Speaker: Move.
• 12:32
  Speaker: You know, if you if you're if you're moving, your choir will move with you.
• 12:35
  Speaker: And so that's that's one of the things that we do.
• 12:37
  Speaker: But we create an environment where it's really easy, there's no pressure, and everyone's doing it.
• 12:42
  Speaker: So if everyone's doing it, you can't feel uncomfortable if it because everybody's doing the same thing.
• 12:47
  Speaker: That's kind of how we do it.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: I love that idea of turning the choir around so that that you are in the audience as a director and they're singing to you.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: That actually brings me to my next question because one of the resources - I've bought lots of your books, probably all of them of your Sing Out series.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: And I've also bought this little book, which is actually my favourite book, and it's this tiny little pocket book, which is the 'Inspire Your Choir: 100 Ideas to Raise the Bar'.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: And I just have so many different takeaways, how to address balance, listening, how to get out of a boring rut in rehearsals, improving the sound or the standard, developing your singers, as well as formation ideas, performing at weird events, there's all sorts of stuff in there.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: And I've just found it an absolute gem.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: What caused you to write it, and why is it important, do you think, for choirs to be creative in their rehearsals?
• 13:43
  Speaker: Well, one of the reasons for writing it was that we, you know, and I have to have to shout out to my my fellow writer, Don Peckham.
• 13:51
  Speaker: Please go and check him out.
• 13:52
  Speaker: He's he's an amazing choir director.
• 13:54
  Speaker: But we were like, look, we're doing this all day long.
• 13:57
  Speaker: And people always come and say, Well, what do we do in this situation?
• 13:59
  Speaker: What do we do in the next situation?
• 14:00
  Speaker: And, you know, we have a really great mutual friend who was working at the publishers at the time, and she was just like, why don't we just put this in a book?
• 14:08
  Speaker: This is a great idea.
• 14:10
  Speaker: So we just sat, you know, independently of each other and just came up with different ideas and just sent them in.
• 14:16
  Speaker: And they were like, Oh, this is good, this is great, this is brilliant, let's put this in.
• 14:19
  Speaker: And that's how it came about.
• 14:20
  Speaker: So it just came out of uh, I guess, a need for the community, the choir leading community, to just have an insight as to what we would think about that then will trigger a thought in in any choir leader who picks it up.
• 14:32
  Speaker: So some people pick it up and they go, That's a really great idea, I can develop it in this way, or they just pick it up and say, Okay, I'm gonna use exactly that.
• 14:40
  Speaker: However you use it is completely up to you.
• 14:42
  Speaker: So it was really just you know ideas that we had in our heads.
• 14:45
  Speaker: It's like a frequently asked questions.
• 14:47
  Speaker: That's really what it what it what it is.
• 14:49
  Speaker: And so that's that's that's what the book is all about.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: One of the ones I've used the most is getting, say, four people in the choir to come out the front and sit in the front in little chairs and listen.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: I don't think they even sing, they just listen to the choir and what they sound like in one of the songs.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: And they're a perspective.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: I always ask their perspective after they've heard the piece.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: How do they hear it out the front?
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: And what was it like?
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: And that's always been really fascinating because you get four different responses every time.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: And then we change songs and another four people, and it's a really great way of mixing it up.
• 15:20
  Speaker: There's a reverse of that in the book as well.
• 15:22
  Speaker: I call it the Pressure Cooker.
• 15:24
  Speaker: I don't know if you've seen that one where the four people get up and they sing their parts back to the full choir.
• 15:29
  Speaker: And that's another way of getting the choir then to go, ah, as a tenor, I'm listening to the tenor.
• 15:35
  Speaker: So I'm like, no, I don't think that was strictly totally right.
• 15:39
  Speaker: I wasn't singing that.
• 15:40
  Speaker: Am I wrong?
• 15:41
  Speaker: Do you know what I mean?
• 15:41
  Speaker: And it's a way of ironing out all of those issues, you know.
• 15:44
  Speaker: So I will always say to each each section, send me your your champion.
• 15:48
  Speaker: Do you know what I mean?
• 15:49
  Speaker: The person that you believe is the winner, right?
• 15:52
  Speaker: Across across the part, in that they they they know their song the best and they're the strongest in that part.
• 15:57
  Speaker: And they come up and they do it.
• 15:58
  Speaker: But it's a really great way of firstly raising confidence as well.
• 16:03
  Speaker: Because people are like, I don't know, I'm not, I could never do that.
• 16:05
  Speaker: I've never sung in in you know, in front of anybody before.
• 16:08
  Speaker: But you'd be surprised how often you do this, you do this time and time and time and time again.
• 16:11
  Speaker: Those people who were not confident almost start to go, actually, can I get can I do that Pressure Cooker thing?
• 16:16
  Speaker: Always have..
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: Can I go up next?
• 16:18
  Speaker: Can I go up next?
• 16:18
  Speaker: Yeah, and then you just go, but of course.
• 16:20
  Speaker: That's what's happened for me throughout my time with with my community choirs.
• 16:24
  Speaker: Do you know what I mean?
• 16:25
  Speaker: That there's always somebody that wants to do it that wouldn't have done it a year ago.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: I listened recently to one of the interviews that you had with Helen Fospero from the Convex Conversation Podcast, was from a few years ago.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: But I remember there was a moment, Mark, where you spoke with real humility, I thought, about your upbringing and some of your struggles, which are completely human struggles, with confidence from time to time.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: How do you wrestle with maintaining a balanced ego?
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: You know, you want to say yes to opportunities that come your way, and you've got lots of opportunities, but you also want to have your feet firmly on the ground and secure with who you are and proud of what you achieve, but still excited for what you're doing next.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: So, how do you balance that?
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: It must be a challenge.
• 17:09
  Speaker: It is a struggle for sure.
• 17:10
  Speaker: My wife is the biggest.
• 17:12
  Speaker: Tracey is just, she's everything, and I know that husbands say that, and we all raise our eyebrows like, yeah, okay.
• 17:18
  Speaker: But no, she is absolutely everything, and she has an incredible ability to help me to understand how how good I've been, or or whatever I've done has been good, but she has also another crazy weird ability to just make me remember that I've got to take the bins out on Monday morning.
• 17:38
  Speaker: And you know, there's times when I come home after you know doing something amazing, it might have been a TV thing with a big choir and you know Alicia Keys and whoever.
• 17:48
  Speaker: And I come home and and it's just like you kind of want somebody to go, Oh my god, oh my god, you're so amazing.
• 17:54
  Speaker: My wife doesn't do that.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: And the kids are like, Dad, I want to watch TV or something like that.
• 18:00
  Speaker: The kids I I I'll be I'll come home and go, Did you did you watch it?
• 18:03
  Speaker: And they're like, Watch what?
• 18:04
  Speaker: It's like no, so so there's there is that that element, which and and obviously Tracey's my best friend, and you know, the the love of my life, we've been married for 23 years, and so she's really good at doing that.
• 18:16
  Speaker: And then Singology.
• 18:17
  Speaker: And I have to give a massive shout out to them.
• 18:20
  Speaker: But I struggle to to articulate this because it changes so often in my mind that being on stage with people who are known, celebrities, famous folk, whoever it might be, is great.
• 18:31
  Speaker: But I crave the real, and I know that not that they're not real people, they are real people, but I crave all the time just almost the mundane, like you know, how's your grandchild?
• 18:44
  Speaker: You know, your father passed the other day.
• 18:45
  Speaker: How are you how are you feeling?
• 18:46
  Speaker: And I crave that and in the moment of being on stage with whoever it might be across the world, exciting though it might be, it's fleeting.
• 18:57
  Speaker: It's something I've done, it's a memory in its past.
• 19:00
  Speaker: But that person's grandchild is going to grow to be something, and that person who's lost their father is gonna go through grief like I went through grief, and I'm really interested in that, and I'm really interested in that journey.
• 19:12
  Speaker: But the stuff that I do lives on as a memory, but in the moment it's gone.
• 19:17
  Speaker: It's gone.
• 19:18
  Speaker: You know, we were on stage with Lionel Ritchie a couple of years ago, and it's just like, my goodness, this is Lionel Ritchie.
• 19:24
  Speaker: But Lionel Ritchie doesn't know who I am.
• 19:26
  Speaker: But we created a choir for him, and he waved and said thanks, and and it's gone.
• 19:30
  Speaker: For me, the the things that I really hold dear are those personal relationships.
• 19:35
  Speaker: And you know, if if Lionel was my best friend, then I'd maybe have a different story about it.
• 19:39
  Speaker: But Singology brings something so incredibly real, and there's so much there.
• 19:45
  Speaker: This this you know, we've got a hundred and odd people in the choir, and there's so much there, and that's that's what keeps me grounded.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: I like what you said about what's real because you can do so many amazing things, and that's what people see on the surface.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: That's what they see.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: They see the the product, but underneath it is all the people and all their stories and how they intertwine and and the shared experiences that we have, and that's what music's about.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: What keeps you coming back to the podium every week?
• 20:11
  Speaker: Changing lives.
• 20:12
  Speaker: That's it.
• 20:13
  Speaker: You know, and I could get quite emotional about it, but I'll I'll try not to.
• 20:16
  Speaker: But I've just seen so many lives enriched and changed through community choir singing, or just singing, you know, because I coach on The Masked Singer.
• 20:26
  Speaker: One of the beauties of that show is many of the celebrities are not singers in their careers.
• 20:32
  Speaker: And so they come in and they go, Well, you know, I just I can't sing, but you know, I'm pretty good.
• 20:36
  Speaker: And that change the change that happens over the few weeks that we have them for, and then we put them on stage is life-changing.
• 20:46
  Speaker: You know, because they they then go out and sing to to millions across the world, and they've done it for the first time.
• 20:53
  Speaker: Those things are really, really addictive for me and why I keep coming back.
• 20:59
  Speaker: And that's not just that's the the four-year-old in the primary school, that's the school child in secondary, that's the community choir singer, that's the person on the mask singer, that's the child on children in need, that's you know, one of my singers in my pro choir who is just blown away by the emotion of a song that's touched them in a way because they're going through something in their life.
• 21:24
  Speaker: Those are the things that for me are super addictive.
• 21:26
  Speaker: I love seeing change, and the truth is I see it every single time, be it a community choir rehearsal, or when that little boy who runs over to me and says, "Mummy, this is the guy", and I'm like, "What did I do?" And his mum's like, "Who are you?" And I'm like, "I don't know who I am." What and he's like, "You taught me in my school last week, and it was amazing." Those things keep me coming back to the podium time and time again.
• 21:58
  Speaker: And you know, I would love to.
• 22:00
  Speaker: I mean, this might sound grandiose, but I'd love to be buried in a podium.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: How do you want that fashioned?
• 22:08
  Speaker: I want I want that that place, and this is this is the thing that really gets me excited.
• 22:14
  Speaker: It's that place in between the choir that I'm drawing all of their energy out of because they've got it.
• 22:21
  Speaker: Some of them don't believe they've got it, but I'm drawing that out of them.
• 22:25
  Speaker: But that place between them and then the audience, because if you ever come to see anything that I do that I have some control over, sadly I don't have control over the king's coronation stage.
• 22:35
  Speaker: But yeah, if you ever come to see anything that I do, the audience are gonna sing as well.
• 22:40
  Speaker: They have to sing as well, okay?
• 22:42
  Speaker: And so for me, that is the place that maybe that's the podium.
• 22:45
  Speaker: Maybe I'm not standing up, maybe I am lying down, but that is my sweet spot.
• 22:49
  Speaker: Audience, choir, all singing together.
• 22:52
  Speaker: And if I can create that environment, man, I'm in heaven.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: What a life to live, hey, what a privilege.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: And you must bless so many people with the work that you do, as well as being blessed back by those people and the things that you make together.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: So uh thank you for your time today.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: We're gonna finish the episode with a we call it a singalong segment, but I'm actually gonna play a recording of one of your arrangements that I sang with 180 singers two years ago in the Adelaide Fringe, and that's your song "Higher and Higher".
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: And we just had such a party, and it was exactly what you said, where the audience was all partying, singing at the top of their lungs, and the whole choir and stage was just manic.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much for all your time, Mark.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: I really look forward to seeing the work that you're doing with Singology and all your other projects as well.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: So thanks so much.
• 23:40
  Speaker: Thank you, Kerrie.
• 23:40
  Speaker: It's been a real pleasure.
• 23:41
  Speaker: Thank you for having me.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Well, that was my chat with Mark De-Lisser, and I'm totally fan-girling right now.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Today's sing along segment, as promised, will be Mark's arrangement of "Your Love Keeps Lifting Me (Higher and Higher)", made famous by Jackie Wilson.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: So feel free to sing along with us wherever you're listening from.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: But before we do, if you have enjoyed today's episode, I would love to hear from you.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: My email is mlchoirsispodcast@gmail.com.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: You can subscribe to this show on whatever app you are listening from, or you can follow Midlife Choirsis on Facebook.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Or if you're super old skool, you could write the letters of the URL and send it to your friend in the calligraphy pen.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: I'm a leave you now with Mark's arrangement of "Your Love Keeps Lifting Me (Higher and Higher".