A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

(C) 2012 Signum Classics Records On September 24, 2012, Britain's Signum Records released The Best of The King's Singers, a two-disc, 40-track compilation of a capella  performances by the current iteration of The King's Singers (Patrick Dunachie, Timothy Wayne-Wright, Julian Gregory, Christopher Bruerton, Christopher Gabbitas, and Jonathan Howard). As I wrote yesterday on my review of Gold, The King's Singers is a sextet of singers (two countertenors, one tenor, two baritones, and one bass) that performs choral compositions from various historical eras and genres without accompaniment. First formed by six choral students (five from King's College in Cambridge and one from Christ Church, Oxford) in 1968, several iterations of The King's Singers have performed in Great Britain, Europe, the U.S., and other countries throughout the world over the past half-century. Additionally, their recordings and concerts on DVD and other home media formats sell well, es...

Many years ago, my hometown of Miami (Florida) had a classical music station, WTMI-FM. Its location on the FM dial was 93.1, and although it did not have as many listeners as stations that played other formats (rock, adult contemporary pop, urban hip hop, oldies, country, or Spanish-language music), it had a loyal base of listeners. I ought to know; from the first time that I tuned in in the early 1980s to December 31, 2001, the sad day when it signed off the air to become Party 93.1, I was a member of that loyal base of listeners. In that two-decade span when I listened to South Florida's "classy and jazzy" radio station, I heard a wide array of compositions, composers, orchestras, and even some awesome solo acts that encompassed many musical genres. Most of the music I listened to was symphonic/instrumental, but every so often I'd come across singers such as Sarah Brightman, Andrea Bocelli, Audra McDonald, and, of course, Luciano Pavarotti (either as a solois...