Tis the season…
Christmas music has always been a King’s Singers speciality, usually in special arrangements. Five former members tell us their favourites.
Jeremy Jackman (countertenor; 1980-90) Even in non-englishspeaking parts of the world, the tune and words of Jingle Bells instantly evoke Christmas. In Gordon Langford’s arrangement it is given the treatment by the supreme master at breathing brilliant new life into old music. This version is inventive, frisky and fun.
David Hurley (countertenor; 1990-2016)
Gordon Langford’s fantastic arrangement of Jingle Bells was always the best encore for a Christmas concert. It was also the final piece I sang in concert with the King’s Singers, as the last encore in an open-air concert in Menton, France, on a sweltering August evening. It was my choice, and I think most of the listeners were left baffled.
Paul Phoenix (tenor; 1997-2014)
You may think I’d choose a piece with sumptuous harmonies, but my favourite King’s Singers Christmas piece was ‘our’ very simple arrangement of Gaudete – not just for the audience’s enthusiastic reaction after the last chord, but also because of an occasion when, in a jet-lagged haze on tour in Japan, I forgot every single word of the first verse and improvised random ‘text’!
Simon Carrington (baritone; 1968-93)
My top Christmas memory has to be of miming to our recording in German of Geoffrey Keating’s arrangement of The Twelve Days of Christmas in an Austrian ski lodge in the middle of the night, while overloading poor Julie Andrews with unwanted gifts – you can find it on Youtube. There had been no time for rehearsal, but she was absolutely magnificent!
Philip Lawson (baritone; 1994-2012)
Mel Tormé’s The Christmas Song is a great song anyway, despite the somewhat mawkish lyrics. Now add Peter Knight’s arrangement and his wonderful orchestration and sing it in front of, say, the New York Pops orchestra and you could imagine you were, well, Mel Tormé himself, even though you actually look or sound nothing like him!