Male voice choir goes straight to number one with latest album

Voices of the Valley – Echoes, took the number one spot in both the classical artist and classical combined charts at the weekend.

It is the sixth to be released by the Fron Choir. But this latest success has been done not with the might of a major music company behind it, but by the skills of some of the individual members of the choir itself along with a small production and recording team.

The choir, which has members from both Wales and Shropshire, completed recording of the sixth in the series at the end of 2019 but the pandemic meant that its release was postponed until St David's Day this year, March 1.

Previously it has been as part of a contract with Universal Studios which released the first album in 2006.

No longer with Universal, the choir decided to take the plunge and record Echoes itself, put the choir's own funds into the project and set up a four-strong team to head the project – Allan Smith, Steve Winn, David T Jones and executive producer, Roger Williams.

Support

"We employed the same production team and used the same recording studio," Mr Williams said.

"Phil and Lucy Beaumont of Forge Studios, not only opening up their mothballed studio specially, for us they also put up the producers, Jon Cohen and Al Unsworth. We could not have done it without their support. Our production team Leigh Mason and Jason Ellis have also been brilliant.

"We had to arrange everything ourselves and it was a real leap of faith. Then lockdown came and everything had to go on hold."

The choir successfully persuaded record company, Silver Screen, to take on the album, ready for the St David's Day 2021 release.

"It is very, very satisfying to see it get to number one in two music charts," Mr Williams said.

"We still have a lot more to do in terms of sales and we are really hoping that we will be able to organise some concerts later this year at which the CDs will be available. It has been a very frustrating year for the choir, unable to even get together for rehearsals so this number one has come as a real boost."

Members

More details on how to order the album are available on the choir's website, fronchoir.com.

The album includes two singles that have already been released, Bring Him Home from Les Miserables, and Billy Joel's And So It Goes, as well as special pieces brought out for St David's Day last year and Christmas.

The choir's previous five albums were all recorded in conjunction with Universal Records.

Fron Choir began in 1947 to compete in the first Llangollen International Eisteddfod and two members, Den Williams and Gren Gough, now in their late 80s, still sing with the choir.

Today members come not only from Froncysyllte but from further afield including about a dozen former members of Oswestry Boys High School.