Close Harmony

Two-time GRAMMY^® Award-winning male vocal ensemble The King’s Singers have been wowing audiences around the world since 1968. They return to the Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts after knockout performances in 2014 and 2018. The gold standard in a cappella singing, they have a back catalogue – as we learn during the performance – of 2776 songs ranging from medieval madrigals to modern masters of jazz, pop, and more. In this performance, one of the last for Christchurch-born baritone Chris Bruerton, we’re treated to the full breadth of their capabilities in a programme of two distinct halves.

Appropriately for the cathedral setting, the first half was entitled Angels and Demons and centred on these popular figures of Christian iconography, alongside the Virgin Mary and Christ. Using these four symbols plus Geoffrey Poole’s dramatic Wymondham Chants written in the 1970s for inspiration, this section collected together choral music from over 500 years to explore the light and darkness of the human experience.

The King’s Singers’ exceptional timing and purity and balance of tone shone through in all the diverse pieces, especially so in the third part of the Demons section, William Byrd’s Miserere mei Deus. Here, each voice perfectly delivered the complex and elegant six-part harmony into a sublime whole. Geoffrey Poole’s epilogue Blessed Jesu was performed partly in the cathedral’s ambulatory, giving it a stunningly ethereal quality.

Following a fun reworking of the overture to The Barber of Seville, the second half was devoted to the group’s favourite arrangements of gospel, jazz, and pop songs, including the most requested in their library, Billy Joel’s And So It Goes. They chose two songs particularly for Wellington. The first, called Whina Said, was composed by Robert Wiremu for the group and beautifully reimagined speeches by Dame Whina Cooper. After a long and hugely deserved standing ovation, they finished with a delectably arranged encore of Pōkarekare Ana.

Fully living up to their reputation for unrivalled technique, musicianship, and versatility, The King’s Singers delighted and excelled yet again.