The Grammy award-winning group The King’s Singers will bring their vast repertoire of music to the University of Central Arkansas’s Reynolds Performance Hall on Tuesday, November 3 at 7:30 p.m. as part of UCA’s Public Appearances and Artist in Residence programs.
      
“The King's Singers are absolutely the best choral group of their sort in the world. I have heard them before, and I am very excited at the prospect of hearing them in Reynolds Performance Hall,” Jerry Biebesheimer, director of UCA Public Appearances, said.

The King’s Singers, who have been billed as “a musical group of the very highest order” by Gramophone Magazine, have been performing since 1968 when they formed at King’s College Cambridge in England. They took their career international in the 1970s. Although no original singers remain in the group, there have only been 20 members to trickle
through since its creation nearly 40 years ago.


On November 2 as Artists in Residence, The King’s Singers will conduct private workshops with UCA’s Concert Choir at 1:00 p.m. and its Chamber Choir at 4:00 p.m. Afterward, The King’s Singers will work privately with high school choral groups, including Little Rock Central High School’s Madrigal Choir, Bentonville High School’s Chamber Choir, Har-Ber High School’s choir from Springdale and Fayetteville High School’s choir.
      
John Erwin, associate professor and head of choral music in UCA’s Department of Music, is the faculty sponsor for the residency.

“They are one of the best male choral groups in the world, so I wanted my students to hear and benefit from their expertise in their field,” Erwin said. “We’re all looking forward to their arrival and can’t wait to hear them sing.”
      
The group is said to have “stayed in character over four decades, yet returned itself to the times,” according to The Times of London. Current members include countertenors David Hurley and Timothy Wayne-Wright, tenor Paul Phoenix, baritones Philip Lawson and Christopher Gabbitas with Stephen Connolly as bass.

The King’s Singers continue to be one of the “most sought-after and critically acclaimed vocal ensembles in the world,” according to their website (click here), and perform a range from Gesualdo to György Ligeti to Michael Bublé. Their recent album, Simple Gifts, won a 2009 Grammy award for Best Classical Crossover Album.

They have been dubbed by BBC Magazine as a group with “performing skill at its finest,” and The Times of London has described them as “such superb entertainers that every note and syllable rings.”

The group performs more than 120 shows annually across the world in leading concert halls and European cathedrals, including Carnegie Hall in New York City and Windsor Castle for the Royal Family. The 2009-2010 season will take them across the United States and to Europe where they will perform in the U.K., Germany, Italy, Poland and Switzerland, among other countries.

The Wall Street Journal has described the group members as “young, affable and funny,” who “produce music that is at once interesting and easy to listen to.”

Major television appearances include a performance with the world-renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir during 2002’s Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and a 2007 televised BBC Proms performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Tickets for the performances are available at the UCA Ticket Central Box Office. Tickets are $30, $32 and $35 for the general public, $27, $29 and $32 for seniors, $25, $27 and $30 for UCA alumni, $23, $25 and $28 for UCA faculty and staff, and $10 for all student tickets. UCA students are admitted free with a current student I.D. For tickets, call
(501) 450-3265 or toll free from anywhere in Arkansas at 1-866-810-0012 or click here.