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Coming to America British King invades Amarillo By George
Schwarz A musical British invasion has hit the United States and it's aimed for Amarillo.
The King's Singers, the premier a cappella all-male sextet, will perform at 7 p.m. Tuesday at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church. It will be the group's first appearance in this city. The visit is part of the Association for Anglican Musicians Region VII Mid-Winter Conclave that runs from Feb. 18-20 at St. Andrew's. The King's Singers was founded in 1968 and has had in the intervening years a total of 19 members, according to the Web site. "The group takes its name from King's College Cambridge, where Al Hume, Simon Carrington and Brian Kay were choral scholars," the group's Web site states. But Carrington, in an interview from his office at Yale University, provided more detail. A group of the choir would go to the local "watering hole" across the road from the cathedral after the evening service, he said. "And, in a back room there, some of us, we'd sing pieces which were not suitable for singing in chapel." But six from that group got along and made a recording called "Songs of Love" for Abbey Records, which attracted the attention of a music lover who arranged several concerts, one of which was in London. It was at that point, in 1968, that the six changed their name to the King's Singers, he said. Philip Lawson has been with the singers for 14 years and is one of the group's baritones, Lawson said in an exclusive interview with The Amarillo Independent. "I replaced Simon Carrington, who was one of the original members," Lawson said. "He and Alistair Hume left at the same time, December 1993, and my first concert was here in the states, on Jan. 13, 1994." The King's Singers generally have formal choral training in the British Cathedral tradition — being part of the choir and studying sacred choral music, Carrington said. "Age 8, you're sent off by your barbaric parents to a drafty medieval building somewhere, where you have to get up on cold winter mornings and sing a wonderful Renaissance polyphony," Carrington said, chuckling. "And that sort of trains you on how to become a professional musician." Even as a youngster, cathedral choristers are treated as professional musicians, he said. "It's your responsibility. You have to get everything sorted out." The schedule in cathedral choirs is robust, singing in services six days a week, with two services on Sunday. That means a lot of new music in short order. One of the Sunday services is an evensong, which is heavily weighted to singing, he said. "The services is very short but there's a lot of singing that goes on." Lawson said he came to the singers by a slightly different route. "I sang in a church choir with a very good choral tradition in Sussex, an old Saxon church," he said. "And that's really why I'm here now. Despite the fact that it wasn't a cathedral choir, they had very high standards." He continued his musical training and practice in York, where he studied singing, composing and organ. From there it was on to London to freelance, but work was spotty, he said. "I took a job in Salisbury where I was a lay clerk at the Cathedral choir and also a teacher. That was my lucky break as far as the King's Singers goes, although I didn't know it at the time." Carrington's son, James, was in the choir and Carrington would come in occasionally to sing one of the two bass parts. "I got to know him well and eventually, when he came to retire, he wrote me," Lawson said, adding that the letter essentially invited him to audition for the King's Singers. If it weren't for the connection to Carrington that way, no one would have known of him, Lawson said. He now sings baritone — although it's called bass in the cathedral choirs. The sextet consists of two countertenors, one of whom sings in the soprano range and the other in the alto range; there is a true tenor and two baritones and a bass. The trip to Amarillo is part of a U.S. tour that began in early February and is scheduled to end with a concert in Idaho at the end of the month. The tour is part of the 40th anniversary celebration of the group. He's made many trips to the United States during his tenure with you group. As recently as December, the singers performed at the new 23,000- seat convention center in Salt Lake City. It was one of several memorable venues and will be featured in a PBS concert program to be released in November, Lawson said. "It was great fun." In 1995, the King's Singers sang at Carnegie Hall with the New York Pops. In Texas, he cited concerts in Dallas and Fort Worth's Bass Hall. Educational programs are a key part of the singers' commitment to music, so, before coming to Amarillo, they will be in San Antonio for the Texas Music Educators Association conference. The trip to Amarillo will also include educational programs for college and high school choirs, with the choirs presenting prepared pieces and the singers giving a critique and pointers. "It's a very important part of our work and it's become more so the longer I've been in the group," he said. "Often, the business of funding concerts now is dependent on the group's offering educational activity as well. And we've all been happy to do that because we learn a lot from it, actually. "It gets us from our mundane routine of flight, hotel, concert hall, get the stands in order, get the music in order, sing something, test the sounds, all that sort of thing. It all gets to be the same." Working with other choirs gives them a chance to articulate their philosophy of choral singing to others, but it also lets them think about it fresh, he said. Tuesday's planned program will include a group of English madrigals from the late 16th century, he said. "You know, madrigals are great fun and we try to bring out the humor with our performances so it's not an historical exercise." The program will include three of seven contemporary pieces the King's Singers commissioned to be dedicated to Queen Elizabeth II, a group of Victorian songs and four songs from Flanders and Swan — a 1950s and 1960s duo that specialized in humorous pieces. The final part of the concert will be five popular songs that the singers will pick on the fly. Sometimes the group bases the final set on what the audience is like, and it can include the Beatles, Broadway tunes or jazz works, he said. Information: St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, 1601 S. Georgia, 376-6316. On the Web: http://www.kingssingers.com/homepage.htm http://www.standrewsamarillo.org/faso.html E-mail
comments about this story Posted: February 14, 2008
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