Christopher Morley speaks to the founder of a new all-woman Birmingham choir.

The founder of a new all-woman Birmingham choir is getting a little nervous.

Myriam Toumi, a 25-year-old student from the Birmingham Conservatoire, is preparing for the group’s launch concert, which takes place tonight (Thursday).

The choir is dedicated to performing works specially written for female voices by a range of classical composers.

Myriam, a French postgraduate choral conducting student, tells me how she came to choose the group’s name, Thaleia.

“She was one of the Greek graces, the Muse of Comedy, and the word literally means ‘‘rich, plentiful, flourishing, enthusiastic’’ – I thought that was perfect for us,” Myriam explains.

Though she had begun by learning the viola (“I really would have loved to play the cello, but it was too big for me when I was a little girl”) Myriam’s interest in singing developed at a comparatively early age.

“In my studies at a music school just outside Paris I started to sing in a choir, and I started to really like it and got a good relationship with my chorus mistress. When I was 13 she told me to audition for the youth choir of Radio France, and I passed.

“It was very professional, and we did about 40 concerts a year. It was part-time, but really intense. I was at school in the morning, and then the whole afternoon with the choir, also singing-lessons, harmony, everything else.

“It was really good training, and I loved my chorus master there. He gave us the opportunity to have some conducting workshops. I got my diploma and decided to carry on. I got a job conducting in a music school when I was 19, and after that my teacher advised me to try to study with Paul Spicer at Birmingham Conservatoire, so I focused on that.”

Myriam recalls her first meeting with Spicer, one of this country’s most eminent choral directors who includes the Finzi Singers and Birmingham Bach Choir in his conducting portfolio.

“I was impressed, this really tall man, and I knew he was good. And because of my English I was a bit scared. He was really nice to me for my first audition, when I rehearsed the Conservatoire’s Camerata choir for 20 minutes in a Bruckner motet.”

Another great Midland choral conductor who has helped Myriam is Jeffrey Skidmore, also a major figure on the Conservatoire’s staff, and in whose Ex Cathedra Myriam sang in the recent celebratory performance of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius at Birmingham Town Hall.