The King's Singers | |
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Origin | Cambridge, England |
Founding | 1968 |
Genre |
Classical Pop |
Members | Patrick Dunachie Timothy Wayne-Wright Julian Gregory Christopher Bruerton Christopher Gabbitas Jonathan Howard |
Website | kingssingers |
The King's Singers are a British a cappella vocal ensemble founded in 1968. They are named after King's College in Cambridge, England, where the group was formed by six choral scholars. In the United Kingdom, their popularity peaked in the 1970s and early 1980s. Thereafter they began to reach a wider international audience, appearing frequently on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in the U.S. In 1987, they were prominently featured as guests on the Emmy Award winning ABC-TV special Julie Andrews: The Sound of Christmas.
Today the ensemble travels worldwide for its performances, appearing in around 125 concerts each year, mostly in Europe, the U.S. and the Far East, having recently added the People's Republic of China to their list of touring territories. In recent years the group has had several UK appearances at the Royal Albert Hall Proms and concerts as part of the Three Choirs Festival and the City of London Festival.
The group has always consisted of six singers in total, with their membership changing over the years. None of the original members remain. The first stable incarnation of the group, from late 1969 until 1978, comprised:
The current ensemble is composed of (starting year in brackets):
Former members of the King's Singers also include Jeremy Jackman, Bob Chilcott, Nigel Short, Bill Ives, Bruce Russell, Colin Mason, Gabriel Crouch, Stephen Parham-Connolly, Robin Tyson, Philip Lawson, Paul Phoenix, and David Hurley. There have been 24 members of the King's Singers since the original stable group was established in late 1969, for whom the average length of tenure is around 12 years.