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A choir consisting of 72 male singers.

• Music Director - Ann Atkinson.
• Deputy Music Director - Owen M. Roberts.
• Accompanist - Caroline Tate-Lovery

On November 20th 2006 we became known as “the oldest boy band in the world” (thanks Daniel). Our Universal Classical and Jazz debut album “Voices of the Valley” raced to number 9 in the pop charts and number one in the classical charts a position it occupied for 15 weeks; it has been awarded a gold and platinum disk for its sales. The album became the fastest selling classical album of all time beating the likes Katherine Jenkins and the Three Tenors.

In 2007 we had a 9 concert tour of the UK singing to packed houses in venues like Bridgwater Hall Manchester, Symphony Hall Birmingham, St David’s Hall Cardiff and the Sage Theatre in Gateshead to name but a few. OUr album was nominated for a Classical Brit Award and was given the honour of launching the Classic Brit Ceremony at the Albert Hall.

August 2007 saw our new army of international fans eagerly awaiting the release of the “Voices of the Valley” album in Australia and again it raced to the top the charts.

In October we completed a ten day tour of Cyprus. It may have been October but it was still hot, thank heaven the hotel had a pool. An essential ingredient of each day - water aerobics and water polo.

The choir have made appearances on TV programmes such as the Paul O’Grady Show, This Morning (twice), Country File, Parkinson Christmas Show and the Rugby World Cup, Songs of Praise

It has been an incredible 12 months it was our 60th birthday this year - great fun but a lot of hard work. The choir is a closer unit now than ever - long may it continue. We've been involved in some unbelievable concerts in such diverse places like the Albert Hall, the Millennium Stadium and a Cowshed on the Rhug Estate in Corwen!!

Our new UK tour starts on the 6th of April 2008, and we’ve met the writer who’s going to write the script for a film about our success!!

Difficult we’ve met so many fantastic people over the last twelve months.

We owe everything to three great people Daniel Glatman - our manager, Jon Cohen the producer of both our albums. Jon’s patience and sense of humour made studio recording time a pleasure, and our President Louise Parker without whom we would not have had the invite to the wedding that started our incredible journey. Louise has also supported us, helped us and advised us throughout - a first class president and friend to the choir.

Hitting the Headlines Again

This is a good start to the year for us, we’ve hit the headlines with our positions in the charts (see the blog above for details of the charts) and someone gave the Queen our CD “Voices of the Valley Encore” for Christmas. It seems that she enjoyed it so much that she commanded her equerry to write to us. The letter mentions our charity calendar so we are considering sending her a copy. The story appeared in the Shropshire Star yesterday 10th January, the story has also appeared on the web site Cheers News and on the web site Femail First

Encore is released in Australia

Classical Brit Nomination

We are delighted to announce that we’ve have been nominated for 'Album of the Year' at the Classical Brit Awards.

The nominations for The Classical Brit Awards 2008 were unveiled today and the category of 'NS&I's Album of the Year' is the only one to be chosen by public vote.

To show your support all you have to do is Click here - and follow the instructions to vote for The Fron Male Voice Choir to win the 'NS&I's Album of the Year'. Please note that only one vote will be counted per computer.

BBC's Open Country Visit Practice 10th March

Hollywood Beckons

Thursday 27th March the Western Mail reported that the writer and director Debbie Isitt who is working on the script of a film to document the choir’s rise to public prominence over the last three years wants to sign one of Hollywood’s biggest A-listers for the project. Debbie wants to sign up Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins for the movie but is also interested in getting Helen Miren, Timothy Spall and Jim Broadbent on board. Click here to read the full story.

Street Doctors

A few weeks ago BBC1’s Street Doctors team were filming on the streets of Chester, and they decided to pop across the border to visit one of the Fron’s practice nights. Although choristers are fond of complaining only two came forward that night. The TV programme is to be broadcasted on BBC1 on Wednesday 2nd April at 7:30pm it should have snippets of the choir singing in practice.

UK Tour 2008 a big success

The UK tour is over for another year and Wow! What an experience, what amazing venues and what amazing audiences. It’s difficult to pick out one venue as standing out, as each turned out to be special in its own way. Will Martin is a star, down to earth and one of the lads and with a superb voice. He’s an extremely talented musician who should do very well. His album New World is due to be released in the UK in Setember 2008.

The recording of our third and last CD in our three record deal with Universal has been completed. The recording went well and there’s only the photo shoot for the CD’s art work and video shots for the advert to go. The CD named “Voices of the Valley – Home” will be released in November. It will include tracks where we are joined by guests artists namely Will Martin, Cerys Matthews, Rolf Harris and one track we are accompanied by the Salvation Army’s Brass Band.

Busking Challenge

BBC 2’s Culture Show - Busking Challenge is a fun competition which involves artistes being asked to take to the streets and carry out 15 minutes of busking to raise money for charity. They are then placed on a leader board according to the amount raised. On March 29th Supergrass jumped to the top of the Leader Board when they took to the streets of London to raise £278.26. Last week the Charlatans took to the streets of Manchester to raise £145.43, which put them in second place.

This week it was our turn on the streets of Chester. We accepted the challenge despite an engagement that evening in Leicester, so it had to take place early. Noon was the time given to us. As we arrived in the city the Lord Mayor’s parade was coming to an end and we thought the crowds would work in our favour. We set up out side Browns of Chester and the crowds soon gathered, but the weather suddenly turned and torrential rain drove away the crowds. A challenge is a challenge and to the choir who are seasoned competitors a bit of rain was not going to stop us. When Noon arrived we started to form up to sing and low and behold the rain stopped and the crowds came back Gospel Train, the Banana Boat song, Rhythm of Life, Yesterday, Saints Goes Marching in, and Amen. The gathered crowed loved it and with the encouragement of Musical Director Ann Atkinson the donations flowed into the collection buckets.

Our challenge went out on BBC2 on Thursdayhere to see our performance as see on BBC2

Three Releases Coming Up

We have a busy period for releases coming up, starting October 15th with the release of our first involvement with a single. We’ve teamed up with Rolf Harris to re record his classic hit “Two Little Boys”. Its thirty years since it was first released and it links in with a documentary that Rolf has recorded about his family’s involvement in the First World War. Look out for our cameo role at the end when we record the single with Rolf in a studio in Oswestry.

The 3rd of November sees the release of a DVD by Freemantle Home Entertainment of a live recording of our concert at the St Jude’s Proms, London. Read Freemantle’s Press release on our blog. When you sing in a choir you only get to hear the song with a heavy bias to your section so we’re all looking forward to seeing this DVD.

November 10th sees our third and last CD with Universal being released. It’s called Voices of the Valley Home and also features guest appearances from our friends Rolf Harris, Will Martin and Cerys Matthews It also features the Band of the Salvation Army. The CD is available for pre-order from Play.com , HMV.com and ciao.co.uk .... .. ..

      

Fron Male Voice Choir DVD trailer

Two Little Boys to be released as a single on November 10th

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