@bestofopera.en: Follow @bestofopera for the voices that refuse to be forgotten. 🎵 "Pie Jesu" - Malakai Bayoh Pie Jesu, Qui tollis peccata mundi, Dona eis requiem, Merciful Jesus, you who take away the sins of the world, grant them rest, He's thirteen, and he steps on stage with a voice that's about to change. That's what happened on 16 April 2023, in the second round of auditions of Britain's Got Talent's 16th series, when Malakai Bayoh sang a prayer for the dead. The piece has no character, no scene: it's a prayer, written for soprano and boy's voice — a part meant for a boy exactly his age. Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote this "Pie Jesu" for his own Requiem, which premiered in 1985 with Sarah Brightman alongside the boy Paul Miles-Kingston. Lloyd Webber dedicated that Requiem to his own father, William, who died three years before he finished it. Malakai started singing at seven — "my mum made me join the choir because she's very bossy," he said himself. Five months before this show, he'd already debuted as a soloist at the Royal Opera House, singing Oberto in Alcina, a boy-soprano role created in 1735. In the words, he asks nothing for himself: he asks rest for those already dead. Did you know Lloyd Webber wrote this Pie Jesu with a voice exactly like Malakai's in mind — a boy's voice? 🎼 Piece: "Pie Jesu" (from the Requiem) ✍️ Composer: Andrew Lloyd Webber 🇬🇧 🎤 Performer: Malakai Bayoh 🇬🇧 🎥 Recording: Britain's Got Talent, Auditions 2, series 16 — 16 April 2023 Follow for more voices that refuse to be forgotten. #BestOfOpera #PieJesu #LloydWebber #MalakaiBayoh

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Wednesday 09 September 2026 20:00:01 GMT