“King’s College Choir to Replace Trebles with Altos”

April 1, 2014 / For Immediate Release / Contact: Andy Doe / http://andydoe.com

BEGINS

King’s College Choir to Replace Trebles with Altos

As a result of regulatory pressure, the Choir of King’s College Cambridge is to stop using boy trebles, it was announced today.

The high voices in the Choir have been provided by boys for more than five centuries. In future, high vocal parts will be performed by altos breathing helium.

See a demonstration of the new technique here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukDAfF0-8q8

Speaking from Cambridge, chaplain Richard Lloyd Morgan explained, “Earlier this year, the Choir began webcasting services. This has been tremendously popular, but the complexity of the regulations involved mean that it is really no longer practical to have young boys singing in the Choir.”

“After a lengthy consultation process, during which we learned that the surgical solution was surprisingly unpopular with the choral scholars, somebody in the chemistry department came up with a very simple solution. Now all we need is a very large tank of Helium.”

About Streaming Webcasts

Streaming webcasts featuring the Choir’s last remaining choristers are available here: http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/choir/webcasts.html

Services are recorded every day. One service from each week is posted online each Saturday morning.

About the Choir

Founded in the fifteenth century, the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge is undoubtedly one of the world’s best known choral groups; every Christmas Eve millions of people worldwide tune into A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. This service has been broadcast by the BBC since 1928. While the Choir exists primarily to sing the daily services in King’s College Chapel, its worldwide fame and reputation, enhanced by its many recordings, has led to invitations to perform around the globe, and to an extensive international tour schedule.

The Choir of King’s College owes its existence to King Henry VI who, in founding the College in 1441, envisaged the daily singing of services in his magnificent chapel, one of the jewels of Britain’s cultural and architectural heritage. As the pre-eminent representative of the great British church music tradition, the Choir regards the singing of the daily services as its raison d’être, and these are an important part of the lives of its sixteen choristers, fourteen choral scholars and two organ scholars who study in the College itself.

The choristers are educated at King’s College School in Cambridge and receive generous scholarships from King’s College to help pay for their education. The School has 400 boys and girls aged 4 to 13. The choristers are selected at biannual auditions, advertised nationally, when they are in Year 2 or 3 at their school. A chorister joins the Choir as he enters Year 4.

ENDS