The Ten Tenors return to the Tower
Published 12:00 am Thursday, March 15, 2018
- The Ten Tenors (Submitted photo)
Heads up, all you lovers of male vocal groups and/or alliteration: The Ten Tenors will travel to Central Oregon to perform Wednesday at an aptly named venue, the Tower Theatre.
Singer Cameron Barclay told GO! he’s looking forward to his second trip to Bend with his nine fellow tenors in the dectet, which last visited Bend as part of a 2015 tour.
“I thought it was super, super cute, and super quaint,” he said. “I really liked it. I really liked that sort of main street area and all around the theater.”
Now, the group returns as part of its U.S. tour promoting its most recent album, “Wish You Were Here.”
The album pays tribute to a number of singers lost over the years, including Roy Orbison, John Lennon, Freddie Mercury, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Leonard Cohen and Amy Winehouse.
“Obviously, ‘Wish You Were Here’ is a track by Pink Floyd, whose front man passed away,” Barclay said, referring to Syd Barrett, who died in 2006. “‘Wish You were Here,’ obviously the title fits the theme. … It’s basically like a tribute, but also like a celebration of these people that have inspired us and inspired lots of other people.”
No strangers to singing other people’s songs — from classical to pop music, and points in between — the 10 men were in rehearsal in 2016 when they received the tragic news about the death of the legendary David Bowie. The song was “Heroes,” which ended up on the album.
“We were rehearsing a song by David Bowie, the news came through that he had actually passed away, on the day that we were rehearsing,” Barclay said. “And then that year, famously, 2016 became that year where we lost so many of those great artists.”
It was only a few years earlier, in late 2013, that Barclay, who hails from New Zealand, joined the Australia-based vocal ensemble. (“Oftentimes, Australians call New Zealand the eighth state of Australia,” he quipped.)
“A friend of a friend … put me in contact with the director,” he said. “Then I did my interview and my audition via Skype. I did it all … remotely, and then I got the job about five days later.”
The experience of becoming a member has been life-changing, Barclay said. In Australia, “Wish You Were Here” reached No. 1 on the charts. The Ten Tenors have performed in 29 countries. By his count, he’s already made seven or eight trips to the U.S. as a member of the group.
“It’s a lovely thing,” he said of being a member. “It’s musically very satisfying. We get to do all these different styles of music, and sing both as a group and as soloists.”
“Obviously, a tenor is not just a classical tenor. A tenor can be a rock tenor, or a pop tenor or a music theater tenor,” he said, and all of those styles are represented in the group. Barclay’s musical background is in classical music.
“I used to work in opera, and I still do in my downtime from The Ten Tenors,” he said. “I, ironically, really enjoy singing all the pop stuff, because it’s something I don’t get to do very often elsewhere. I really love singing Queen, some of the new tracks we have from the new album. Things like Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah.’ We’ve got INXS (‘Never Tear Us Apart’). There’s some Prince on there, too (‘Nothing Compares 2 U’).”
The live show is made up of more than just songs from the recent album, however.
“We can take on a really diverse range of music,” Barclay said. “I think that’s what is a massive key to our success, really. You can get a wife who loves a bit of a classical music, and she brings her husband along, and he falls in love with the fact that we sing Queen and Meatloaf. Sometimes we sing a tune of Bruno Mars, and so a teenager or a young adult will really identify with that, too. There’s a little bit of everything for everyone.”