This month, locals will get to experience a singing sensation from the United Kingdom that has been around for more than 50 years. The King’s Singers, a six-man choral group, is coming to Rudder Theatre on Thursday, Feb. 27, at 7:30pm thanks to MSC OPAS.
The King’s Singers formed in 1968 as a group of recent grads from King’s College, Cambridge. When they started doing concerts, they sang a variety of songs because they didn’t have a big enough repertoire of any one style. Today, their range of styles is a hallmark of the King’s Singers and one of the reasons they have found worldwide success.
“Our repertoire has an enormous amount of variety; we try to bring everything from super old to super modern in one concert,” says bass singer Jonathan Howard. “Certain songs are fan favorites. We like to innovate and change, but we also sing those old favorites like Beatles songs, folk songs. We have a lot of popular Billy Joel arrangements. We don’t sing them all in every concert, but we do want to honor that part of our heritage.”
Howard has been part of the group for almost 10 years. The King’s Singers have rotated through members through the years but carefully maintain the quality and the spirit of the original group through a selective audition process. Howard was invited to audition based on the recommendation of his old choirmaster.
“Somehow, I got the job,” says Howard. “I was really lucky. I was 23. They have exactly the same line up — two countertenors, a tenor, two baritones, and a bass — and the bass before me had been in there for 23 years. He was retiring, and they wanted someone young. I was in the right place at the right time with the right people.”
Although occasionally accompanied by an orchestra, the King’s Singers almost always perform a cappella and without the help of any kind of amplification. Howard says their goal is to provide the magic you achieve with human voices alone.
“We create harmonics that make the sound much louder,” explains Howard. “It’s amazing how you can make something travel much further than the sum of its parts. It’s a quirk of acoustics.”
Between putting on 120 concerts in a year all over the globe and conducting summer schools and residential workshops, the King’s Singers’ schedule could be overwhelming, but Howard enjoys all the places he visits and the connections he makes.
“For me, my favorite thing to do at a show is to stand on stage and not just sing but sing to people,” says Howard. “I look out and see people and make eye contact. That personal relationship I love more than everything else.”
At their concert on Texas A&M University’s campus, the King’s Singers will have something for everyone, young and old.
“Our audiences are so mixed, and I love that,” says Howard. “It really depends country to country: in the UK, we have a lot of older people come because they remember seeing the King’s Singers on TV. In the States, there’s been a resurgence in the popularity of a cappella, so we see many college students and high school students because of our variety.”
Among the variety of songs performed, attendees of the concert will likely get to hear selections from the King’s Singers’ latest album, Finding Harmony, which came out at the end of January.
“[The album] has music from all over the world that shows the identity of the countries,” says Howard. “Music is a really powerful force in the world right now. … It’s an important project for us. The world needs it right now. We want people to see the value singing has and get people to sing or listen to others singing.”
All of the songs in the concert will showcase the King’s Singers’ pitch-perfect precision and show the audience why they have a loving, loyal fanbase around the world, says Howard.
“There’s something incredibly intimate about six people on stage with nothing else,” says Howard. “The program is emotionally charged. Human voices singing expresses something nothing else can. I’d love for people to come and share the experience.”
Tickets for this MSC OPAS Intimate Gathering performance are available to purchase at www.boxoffice.tamu.edu.
