The King’s Singers
Image: Photo: B. Ealovega
British a cappella sextet The King’s Singers are returning to Australian shores to perform their rendition of classic 20th century American tunes in The Great American Songbook.
“We wanted to devote a whole recording to the repertoire of great American songs,” says David Hurley, countertenor.
The difficulty however was choosing from the thousands of great songs. “We were probably doing a fiftieth of what we wanted to but we came up with seventeen,” says Hurley. Audiences won’t be disappointed, as they’ve chosen treasured classics from the likes of Cole Porter, Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart.
Hurley asks audiences to keep an ear out for their personalised version of The Lady is a Tramp. “The tradition in some of these songs from that time was individual performers would give them their own particular cultural references,” he explains. “There is a reference to Twitter and a little reference to cricket, and has the theme tune to Test Match special – our version of highlights of test match on the radio.”
It’s an addition that sometimes gets lost to an American audience so Hurley is excited to perform it here, noting, “in Australia and New Zealand, it’s right on message.” (MT)
Jun 25, City Recital Hall, 2-12 Angel Pl, Sydney, $77-112, (02) 8256 2222, cityrecitalhall.com
BY MELODY TEH
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