I write in the middle of February. It has been a long winter. The sun has been distinctly lacking for too long!

But in the last couple of days we have seen a few brief rays of the good stuff. Snowdrops are suddenly appearing. Daffodils, not yet in bloom, show promise as they poke through the recently frozen earth. Meteorological forces are finally offering some hope from above.

I hope it's not too much of a stretch, but for many National Youth Choir alumni of the early 2000's, Ben Thapa was a force of nature too.

He was a god.

I speak as a former Bass Section Leader who led my comrades into battle against Mahler, Schütz, and Schönberg at the same time that Ben led the Tenors.

I was blessed. I had an incredible team to work with. My boys had the lot. Good looks, charm, comedy, silky sounds and sight-reading ninjas. The full package.

And then there was the Tenors....

I can say this as enough time has passed, and Ben's incredible leadership turned things around, but what a bunch he had to play with.... A more ramshackle group of recently pubescent miscreants you could not wish to muster [Ed. It's ok, we have checked in with them and they agree...]. But over many weeks of touring across Western Australia, New Zealand, Samoa, and Singapore, Ben did it. He turned boys into men. He transformed a disparate group of laryngeal stodge into a quality unit of hope and class.

Ben’s boys loved him. He was a musical, and social, hero to them. More on the music later, but for Ben music and socialising went hand in hand. He had played a vital role on an infamous night in a Harrogate Wetherspoons…. Whenever those of us who were there that night meet up, we don't like to talk about it too much. The memories. Oh, the memories! But we are justly proud of the fact that never before, or since, have so many people been barred from Harrogate...

It was all light-hearted fun, I promise. Ben was there. Ben was in his element. Oh we laughed.

Ben was the only one - bearing in mind this was a group of the best young singers in country - the only one who could have pulled off the solo role in the extraordinary Mongolian choral piece 'Naiman Sharag'.

Ben was the only one, due in no small part to his early career successes with X-Factor finalists G4, who could invite the entire National Youth Chamber Choir – Laudibus, for an evening out in the west end of London. He would flash gold membership cards at some of London’s most high profile private members clubs, and then buy all the drinks. For the rest of us, most of us living in student digs on a diet of corned beef hash and cider, this was extraordinary. For Ben, it was important. We were his crew.

But for all the successes of his days in National Youth Choir and beyond, and the ‘bling’ that he enjoyed, Ben was the one who went off on the NYC 2003 six-week world tour, with little more than a tennis ball in his pocket.

That tennis ball went on to become the most vital bit of kit on that tour. 'One-Hand-Wonder' was a team building game that Ben brought with him and it would be brought out in situations that needed it across the globe.

The rules were simple. Stand in a circle, throw a tennis ball, and catch it with one hand. If you failed to catch it, you had to get down on one knee. Then two knees. Then sitting. Then out. Catch it successfully, and you could move back up the chain. Delayed flights, those annoying times between rehearsal and gig, around a swimming pool in Samoa (that added an extra level where you could dive and catch!), in one of the many service stations we stopped at in Western Australia, wherever the opportunity arose Ben would whip out his ball.

He knew the power of community. Of how a happy team is a successful team. He knew that in order to be a success on the concert platform, everyone had to feel valued - even if he was streets ahead of the rest of us in every regard.

As Laudibus recorded CD after CD with Delphian Records, every take would see 20 young singers, the conductor, and the producer looking to Ben for his approval. His perfect pitch was our twelfth man. Still, when I occasionally listen to silence at the end of Daniel-Lesur's 'Le Cantique des Cantiques', or the Vaughan Williams disk we did around that time, I instinctively look to my right to check in with Ben. Depending on what his face did, it would determine what the next patch of time would look like. A puckering of the lips, a raising of the eyebrow and a short nod = in tune! A goldfish opening and closing of the mouth and puffing out of the cheeks = nowhere near, we needed to do that again. 

Why did he ever put up with us mortals?

Following an intimate funeral in Cambridge in December, over 400 of his friends and colleagues met at Southwark RC Cathedral recently to share in our common grief. To come together and remember, laugh, cry, drink gin, sing, and celebrate. Many more joined the livestream, or caught up on YouTube at a later date. It really was quite something.

 Jonathan Schranz, Director of Music at Southwark RC Cathedral, wrote: 

Directing the music for Ben's Memorial Mass was a huge honour, and something I shall never forget. It was clear from conversations with the singers involved that this was a visceral experience for us all: an outpouring of all sorts of emotions, and this made for a sound unlike anything I'd ever heard.'

Squeezing 120 singers into an area made for 40 was a mammoth task in itself, as was steering this juggernaut of a choir through complex textures, and I hope that the final result is something that Ben would have been proud of: raucous and joyful in equal measure.

It really was both raucous and joyful. In Ben's honour, we were all encouraged to wear outlandish clothing and to liberally spray on our most fragrant fragrances. Even those watching online - I know of NYC alums who tuned in from as far afield as Malaysia that day - could have smelled us...

But then, at the pub later (and a few gins in), just like that night in Harrogate all those years ago, something extraordinary happened.

Such was Ben's draw, seemingly all of the Tenors in London had gathered in one place. Now you and I both know what happens when you get a group of tenors together in a room with a piano - Nessun Dorma…

Yes. Never before has anyone heard anything like it. Nessun Dorma, translated as 'None Shall Sleep'. Well. Yes. That noise! No chance of sleep for anyone within a three mile radius of that pub that night. It really was quite something.

None shall sleep. That's Ben, isn't it!? Just as he did for his Tenor section of the early 2000's, Ben had the power to awaken, to nurture. The power to help others flourish.

This is all the more remarkable as Ben's early life wasn't a bed of roses. He joined NYC in his mid to late teens and at that time he was still looking for somewhere to put down some solid roots. His much-loved singing teacher at the time, and lifelong inspiration, Felicity Cook needs much praise for the way she helped Ben then and beyond. Felicity knew Ben well as his teacher at home in Cambridge and also at NYC. She saw something in him and invested in him. Her quiet and assured guidance helped to find Ben his place. His tribe.

All at National Youth Choir should be incredibly proud of playing a pivotal role in Ben's development. For me, he is a shining example of what National Youth Choir can do. It’s not over the top to state that the organisation gave him some good soil at a time when he needed it. In turn, he certainly added to the nutrients for the rest of us.

He was one of a kind beauty, who gave and gained in equal measure. All of us who were there, were privileged to be in the garden at the same time as him.

Tom Appleton

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