Christmas is always a busy time of year for me
WELSH MEZZO-SOPRANO KATHERINE JENKINS TALKS TO NAOMI CLARKE ABOUT HER FESTIVE TRADITIONS AND HOW THE PANDEMIC HAS CHANGED HER PERSPECTIVE ON HER CAREER
IT’S the age-old question – how early is too early to start getting into the Christmas spirit?
For Katherine Jenkins, the festivities start earlier than most as the performances and recordings start to line up. This year, it began in September when she recorded her new festive single in the studio, wearing a Christmas jumper and a pair of shorts thanks to the summer temperature lingering into autumn.
The track, Home For Christmas, offers a fresh take on the carol Hark The Herald Angels Sing with new lyrics to make it more current.
Featuring Katherine’s powerful mezzo-soprano vocals harmonised with the Rodolfus Choir, the song is a tribute to the Welsh singer’s homeland and seeks to promote the importance of “love and togetherness” .
Katherine explains that she likes to work with the choir as it is led by musical director Ralph Allwood, who used to conduct her in the National Youth Choir of Wales.
“To be back in the studio with him and with these young singers, it’s just really inspiring to work with such great people and I’ve missed that”, says the 43-year-old.
“Christmas music for me always resonates, I love singing Christmas music and this song is a take on one of my favourite Christmas carols, but with new words written just to give it more of a contemporary feel.
“And also to talk more about the message of how it isn’t really about the material things.
“It’s not about whether you’ve done the shopping, and the TV, and if you’ve wrapped all the presents. Its purely about, do you have everybody with you that you love?
“It’s a time for families coming together and that’s what we were trying to capture with the song.”
The Military Wives Choir, with whom Katherine has performed on a number of occasions, has also sung a slightly different version of the song before and the singer hopes they can come together again for a duet of it one day.
After signing with her first record label aged 22, Neath-born Katherine burst on to the music scene in 2003 when she performed at Westminster Cathedral in honour of Pope John Paul II’s silver jubilee.
She went on to perform the national anthem ahead of important Welsh rugby matches.
Twenty years later, she is a dominating musical artist, releasing 14 albums which have gone to number one in the UK classical chart.
In 2020 she was crowned the biggest-selling classical artist of the century by Classic FM.
While she’s recorded new songs, she hasn’t released an album since 2020’s Cinema Paradiso.
“I’ve done 14 albums in 20 years and I felt that I really wanted to have a reason to go into the studio that I was really excited about,” she explains.
“And so I went in and recorded this song and some other new music and it is really lovely to almost have had a little bit of a creative reset and a little pause and I think that makes you appreciate your time in the studio. It’s been really, really nice to be back in.”
In November the singer returned home to her beloved Wales to perform a Home For Christmas concert at Swansea Arena.
In the show, which will be aired on the BBC over the festive period, she ensured everyone left feeling in the holiday spirit by performing classical favourites, operatic arias and special Christmas songs.
“I love Christmas, I love Christmas music”, she gushes. “It’s always a busy time of year for me.”
And Katherine is not exaggerating as she has also already filmed the Songs Of Praise Christmas and New Year concert shows. However, she is relishing her time back on the stage after the pandemic brought all live performances to a grinding halt.
“I love live performance”, she says. “I love seeing an audience in front of me and I like working with incredible musicians.
“I’m sure that’s because of the past few years and those things not being there. Those are the most important parts of my job.
“It’s respecting my audience and wanting to make and perform the best that I can for them.”
The singer says the pandemic also offered her time to clarify what aspects of her job and life were most important to her, and that fame and all it entails was an aspect she was not as interested in.
“It’s just about prioritising how I use my time”, she adds. “If I’m leaving my family and going to work, I want to be excited about what I’m doing and I want to be creative and make something I’m proud of.”
Among her favourite Christmas traditions with her family is a good game of Trivial Pursuit on Christmas night accompanied by a cold buffet of salads and turkey, as well as exercising her creative muscles when setting up elaborate Elf On The Shelf scenes for the two children she has with husband Andrew Levitas.
“I didn’t have that in my childhood but I am obsessed with our elf,” she says. “We have a very naughty elf in our house. Our elf somehow gets on my Instagram page as well and I love being creative and seeing all of that. So that’s really fun.”
She says since having her children, who are now aged five and eight, Christmas has become centred on “making it special for them”.
“I think you definitely see it in a whole new light when there are kids around,” she adds.
Katherine’s family remains an anchor in her life and she reveals that every time, before she steps foot on stage, she says a prayer and speaks to her late father, who died when she was 15.
She says: “Do I feel sad that he didn’t see it [her success]? I do because he would have been chuffed to bits, but I think he is seeing it. It feels like he’s with me on the journey anyway.”
Home For Christmas is out now and Christmas With Katherine Jenkins, is on December 23 at 7.10pm on BBC2 and BBC1 in Wales
It’s a time for families coming together and that’s what we were trying to capture with the song Katherine on the meaning of Christmas