The King’s Singers — ‘World’s Greatest a Capella Group’ — at St. John’s Georgetown Nov. 15


The accent over the phone is English, and the background and history seem decidedly English, Oxonian or Cambridge to some extent, a place where university is a word without a definite article. The man who’s speaking is a gentleman named Jonathan Howard who speaking both with speed and precision.  Yet, he’s part of a musical group whose appeal is universal to a fault—they have been, in one  incarnation or another, just about everywhere, high and low, Asia and America, concert halls and churches, cathedrals and musicales.

The group is. once and for all and after all, the King’s Singers, a hugely popular  British a cappella vocal ensemble, which, for 47 years, have expanded the idea and the experience of the enjoyment and appeal of contemporary music all over the world.  The singers will be at St. John’s Episcopal Church on O Street in Georgetown 5 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 15, in a concert that is likely to contain both music intricate and music joyful, music steeped in tradition, and music composed, if not last week, at least in this century.

Given the nature of time, Howard is part of a six-man group that has varied with the passing of time. Howard, a bass, joined the group in 2010.  Its oldest current member is David Hurley, a countertenor who joined the group in 1990, the most recent members are Julian Gregory, a tenor, and Christopher Gabbitas, a baritone. The group also includes Tim Wayne-Wright, another countertenor, and Christopher Bruerton, another baritone.

“I am sometimes am astounded that I am where I am at all, and that we go where we go,” Howard said. “This is the way it has always been, of course, the group re-forms over time, but there is always a mix. David [Hurley] grounds us, brings the memories, the traditions that are part of the previous incarnations.”

Loosely speaking, the group was formed in 1968. The singers are or were, indeed King’s men, in the sense that they attended King’s College in Cambridge, England.  The original members were all studious types, being choral scholars—they performed madrigals, choral works with an ever increasing dose of more modern music, less formal, but still heavy in the traditions of choral music.

“I think the singers, including our bunch, tend to have similar backgrounds, university in one form or another,” Howard said. ” Some of us have experience in composition, all of us know the structure and workings of both classical and contemporary music. We know by now our audiences, and they vary, and that always amazes me.  In this concert, in a smaller venue, which we like, you get a great degree of intimacy, a feedback from the audience, it’s like being in an old drawing room, in some ways, there’s much more response.”

These days, the group is reflective of what is going on in contemporary music, contemporary composition and audiences. “I don’t mean we’re rock and rollers per se,” he said. “We’re a choral group, but we do include things from the great American songbook, for instance, or the Beatles.  The songs of the Beatles, in fact, are ready-made for choral performance. Think of “Eleanor Rigby,” “Penny Lane” and “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”—what you can do with that as a group.”

The group comes to Washington “quite often”— the Kennedy Center, the Washington Cathedral, but it travels, Howard said, “all over the country. It’s great way to experience the country. “  The singers are in some ways musical chameleons, tradition bound, but flexible in identity.  When you view a video of their “Down By The Riverside”, they could pass for a very tony but very accessible barbershop quartet.

“All our music is about integrity, authenticity of the music,” Howard said.

The group has won Grammys, but more importantly, they’ve won over audiences.  In his biographical statement, Howard says he considers the King’s Singers “the world’s greatest a capella group.” He’s astonished at the accumulated repertoire which includes “Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsaries for Maundy” and the Great American Songbook in back-to-back concerts.

The King’s Singers come to Georgetown by way of Lutz Hall, in Annville, Pennsylvania, and are off to Middlebury, Vermont, after Washington, D.C. On Nov. 18,  the group will travel to Krakow, Poland, for a concert with Filharmolnia Krakowskas, and fly back the next night to All Saints Chapel in Sewanee, Tennessee, which could be down by the riverside.

The King’s Singers, 5 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 15, St. John’s Episcopal Church, 3240 O St. NW. Tickets, $40; students, $25. For more information, call 202-338-1796 or visit StJohnsGeorgetown.org. Free parking is available at Hyde-Addison Elementary School across O Street from the church.

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