Performing Arts Spotlight: The King's Singers

They dress like debonair secret agents, win over more hearts than a basket of puppies and sing like angels. Founded in 1968 at King’s College in Cambridge, England, The King’s Singers are one of the world’s most foremost vocal ensembles. While Pentatonix and Pitch Perfect have rekindled popular interest in the vocal arts, The King’s Singers have been using their musical virtuosity and irresistible charm to garner international fame for decades, performing for hundreds of thousands of people each season all over the globe. Now, they are coming to Middlebury.

Instantly recognizable for their immaculate intonation, vocal blend, diction and incisive timing, The King’s Singers are consummate entertainers. If you love our campus a cappella groups half as much as I do, this performance offers an exceptional treat and insight into the very highest level of talent. Tickets are selling out so quickly that the venue was changed from the MCA to Mead Chapel.

Since the group’s founding, there have been 25 King’s Singers — the original six and 19 replacements, each joining as somebody else leaves. Current members include: countertenors David Hurley and Timothy Wayne-Wright, tenor Julian Gregory, baritones Christopher Bruerton and Christopher Gabbitas and bass Jonathan Howard. The longest tenured is Hurley, with 26 years to his credit as a King’s Singer. This is his final concert tour with the ensemble.

“I am now into my twenty-sixth year standing at the left hand (as you look at it) end of The King’s Singers, and I don’t know where the time has gone,” he said. “I still love the variety that each day brings as we travel to wonderful places around the world, and I always get a buzz from sing- ing to a live audience. I was the youngest child of three, with older sisters, so I rather enjoy the novelty of being the oldest in the group.”On the other end of the spectrum, Julian Gregory is the group’s youngest member, having joined just last year.

“I will always remember the summer of 2014: the time when I was having an incredible time living in Aix-en-Provence, singing in two inspirational operas at Le Festival d’Aix, exploring the stunning Mediterranean coastline nearby and, one wholly unsuspecting morning, being called out of the blue by The King’s Singers to ask whether I’d like to be flown out to Riga in Latvia the following week to audition for the tenor spot of their group,” Gregory said.

Auditions are only offered when a current member is ready to step down. This alone makes them exceedingly rare. Furthermore, auditions are never open to the public. You do not go to the King’s Singers; The King’s Singers come to you. When it is time to replace a member, they evaluate the best vocal talent in the world and invite a few for a chance at the spot. Members come from all walks of life, but the presiding thread is an unparalleled love for and appreciation for singing. For Timothy Wayne-Wright, that recognition came when he was just six years old, singing the daily services as a boy chorister at Chelmsford Cathedral.

With almost all the group’s members initially finding their love via singing in church choirs, it is appropriate that The King’s Singers perform in our beloved Mead Chapel. The chapel was built in 1916, and while service requirements disappeared decades ago, it is still the favorite place of many choral and a cappella groups on campus, from the College Student Choir to the Mamajamas to Dissipated Eight. According to Christopher Gabbitas, although The King’s Singers have performed in the world’s most renowned venues, he is happiest in chapels like ours.

To Christopher Bruerton, being a King’s Singer is more than simply astounding audiences all over the world with vocal prowess and presence: It is an unparalleled opportunity to guide and inspire those who will keep the tradition alive.

“Since making my debut in The King’s Singers I have loved every moment,” he said. “I am so fortunate to have had the chance to sing in world-renowned concert halls from New York to Sydney with Beijing in between. However, I get the biggest buzz from being able to pass on my experience to the next generation through the workshops we do across the world. There is no greater joy than seeing others making their first steps in a cappella and ensemble singing.”

The group’s diverse repertoire includes more than 200 commissioned works, including landmark pieces from leading contemporary composers such as Luciano Berio, György Ligeti, Sir James MacMillan, Krzysztof Penderecki, Toru Takemitsu, Sir John Tavener, Gabriela Lena Frank and Eric Whitacre. The King’s Singers have also commissioned arrangements of everything from jazz standards to pop chart hits, explored medieval motets and Renaissance madrigals and encouraged young composers to write new scores. They are two-time Grammy award-winning artists, and were recently voted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame. For Jonathan Howard, a King’s Singer since 2010, the music never gets old.

“The breadth of our repertoire also staggers me,” he said. “I smile seeing pro- gram sheets that list all of Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsaries for Maundy Thursday and our staged Great American Songbook show in consecutive concerts. But most of all, it brings me such joy to think that, as the group grows and we approach our 50th anniversary, we still dare to defy musical classification. We’re not just classical singers, folk singers, jazz singers or pop singers. We’re simply six friends who love to sing, and we’re thrilled there still seems to be a place in the market for groups like ours that aren’t bound to a stereotype.”

The King’s typically either sing a set of Renaissance music or more contemporary pieces. However, The King’s Singers have agreed to do a very unique program for Middlebury. The first half of the show, drawn from the group’s recording Pater Noster: A Choral Reflection on the Lord’s Prayer, will include sacred music from the English Renaissance. After intermission, The King’s Singers will take a musical tour around the globe with songs from their “Postcards Project,” a collection of folk and popular songs amassed on their travels. This half will include works from Canada, Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, Italy, France and the United States.
Special thanks to our amazing Performing Arts Series Director Allison Coyne Carroll for arranging this incredibly unique program in reflection of the College’s international strengths and outreach.

To learn more about The King’s Singers, come to the pre-concert lecture given by Jeffrey Buettner, Chair of the Department of Music and Director of Choral Activities, at 6:30 p.m. at Mead Chapel. Audience members are more than welcome to come to hear more about the ensemble, their musical tradition and the works to be performed.

The King’s Singers concert will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 17 at 7:30 p.m. in Mead Memorial Chapel.

Tickets are $6 for students. Visit go/ boxoffice or stop by one of the offices in McCullough or the MCA.