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Collins sings of deal with choirmaster Malone

06.02.12 | Charlotte Williams

HarperCollins has acquired a memoir by choirmaster and star of TV series "The Choir", Gareth Malone.

Collins publisher Hannah MacDonald bought UK and Commonwealth rights from Gordon Wise at Curtis Brown, with plans to publish the memoir on 13th September 2012. Publication will tie into the sixth series of BBC2's "The Choir", which sees a group of people who have never sung before brought together to form a choir.

Last series, the fifth outing of the format, Malone formed a choir of the wives, girlfriends and children of soldiers serving in Afghanistan. The single from the series, "Wherever You Are", became 2011's Christmas number one.

The memoir will be a look back over all five previous series, and will also include the new six-part prime time TV series this autumn and Malone's other projects including "Gareth Goes to Gylndebourne". Malone will write about the ways he has been moved by the people he's worked with and what he has learnt through the process of teaching others to sing, saying: "'The Choir' has been as life-changing for me as it has been for the singers and this book will be a chance for me to set down how this came about."

MacDonald said: "Gareth Malone is a much loved and highly important author for Collins. He represents the broadly appealing but highly expert brand of inspiration that Collins excels at . . . We intend to turn [the book] into a richly engaging, inter-generational bestseller for Christmas."

• Charlotte Williams
• choirmaster
• collins
• Curtis Brown
• Gareth Malone
• gordon wise
• Hannah MacDonald
• Rights deal
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