The Chorus [Les Choristes]

Composer: Bruno Coulais.
Translator: Ellen Sowchek.
Director Christophe Barratier's 2004 film Les Choristes, released in the U.S. in January 2005 as The Chorus, is, depending on your point of view, either a heart-warming or a saccharine story set in post-World War II France about a choral director at a school for delinquent children who reforms his charges by teaching them to sing together. Sing together they do on this album (a French best-seller), presenting new music by Bruno Coulais that sounds old. Actually, it isn't the boys' choir of the movie that's doing the singing, but rather Les Petits Chanteurs de Saint-Marc Choir, who, by the list of names, appear to include quite a few girls. In any case, the music is pleasant and harmonious, and the few snatches of Coulais' score played by the Bulgarian Symphony Orchestra (which no doubt charges less than a French orchestra would) are equally listenable. There are also bits of dialogue, notably in the final track, "Nous Sommes de Fond de l'Étang" ("We Are from Fond de l'Étang"), which is an audition in which the boys sing some of their favorites while trying out. ~ William Ruhlmann