Tag Archives: Onward

Alfie Boe and the D’Oyly Carte

Who can name the song that Alfie Boe sang at his first ever professional audition? Of course, you all can – Lehar’s You Are My Heart’s Delight for the D’oyly Carte! The reason I’m asking you this is that I recently had the pleasure of interviewing David Steadman who was the Principal Conductor when Alfie auditioned. Although David was not present at that first audition, he clearly remembers the director, John Owen Edwards, telling him that he had found “a fantastic tenor from Blackpool”. Edwards later conducted our current Alfie Boe album of the month, Onward.

As we all know, Alfie was offered a part in the chorus for the tour of HMS Pinafore and as the saying goes, never looked back. David Steadman remembers him very well from his time conducting that tour, saying that everyone in the company from the other chorus members to the orchestra, loved Alfie. According to David, Alfie was clearly destined for great things in the music world as he had such a natural voice that came from the heart but also, crucially, he worked hard, always learnt his music and was such a lovely person. The thing that endeared him most to everyone was that he had no idea how good he was but he took to it like a duck to water, never seeming to struggle with harmonies, always being note perfect. The effect on the rest of the tenors in the chorus was to galvanize them to come up to the standard that Alfie was setting. However, Alfie still clearly stood out as evidenced by a conductor from the Birmingham Bach Society who happened to see the show and afterwards mentioned to David that there was an “exceptional tenor in the chorus”. Alfie later went on to play a leading part in the D’Oyly Carte’s recording of HMS Pinafore.

David went on to describe the effect Alfie’s voice had on a London audience for the first time; singing two or three arias at the Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, Alfie absolutely brought the house down. A similar experience was had at a New Year’s Eve concert in Blackpool where David conducted the National Concert Orchestra. Alongside a couple of D’Oyly Carte soloists, Alfie also performed with his brother Michael, in front of what seemed to David like the whole Boe family in the front stalls!

Alfie himself is very thankful to the D’Oyly Carte for giving him his first chance in the music world, as seen in this quote from his autobiography, My Story:

…If you had the ability to sing, the D’Oyly Carte gave you the opportunity regardless, and that’s priceless. They did a lot for me.

In recent years, the company has been dormant with no productions between 2003 and 2013 but there is shortly to be a forthcoming production, in collaboration with Scottish Opera, of the Mikado. This was preceded by a successful joint production of the Pirates of Penzance in 2013. David himself is Music Director of the D’Oyly Carte Opera Trust and is currently conducting the UK touring production of the Sound of Music, having previously worked for several years with the Really Useful Group and Bill Kenwright.

All this may sound enough to be getting on with but David is also presently engaged in writing and organising a D’Oyly Carte recipe book! Featuring handwritten contributions from company members going right back to the 1920’s, the book was passed to David a few years ago and that was that until he had the idea of publishing a recipe book to raise money for CLIC Sargent, a leading charity for children with cancer. Sir Malcolm Sargent was at one time, Principal Conductor with the D’Oyly Carte.

David is clearly very proud of Alfie’s achievements in his career so far and says he was saddened to read Alfie’s book and learn of his subsequent struggles within the wider opera world as he and everyone else at the D’Oyly Carte are so proud of his career. When they last spoke, Alfie was still the same down to earth man he was when he first met him, confessing to feeling “amazed” at how things have gone for him. For his part, David says that it was “entirely the good fortune of the D’Oyly Carte” to have had Alfie in the company.

Alfie’s album Onward and the recording of HMS Pinafore are available now:

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March Album of the Month: Onward – Alfie Boe

Hot on the heels of February’s Alfie Boe Album of the Month, Love Was A Dream, we come to the featured album for March, Onward.

Onward, released in 2007 was Alfie’s first album with EMI and the track list reflects the religious theme that the label wanted Alfie to record. Reading his autobiography, My Story, Alfie had definite ideas about the arias that he wanted to sing (Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Creation, Verdi’s Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Mozart’s Requiem) but EMI instead chose the populist route of Lord is My Shepherd, Amazing Grace etc. These are beautifully sung by Alfie but I think the label really missed a trick in not going with Alfie’s choices. Having said that, Onward was nominated for Best Album at the Classical Brit Awards so what do I know? The following clip is from Songs of Praise, I Wonder As I Wander, one of a couple of Christmas tracks on the album:

From the recent thoughtsofjustafan survey, Onward is one of the less well owned albums (72% of respondents own it) and this could well be that some fans are not religiously inclined and do not want to buy an album of (mainly) hymns. Alternatively, it could be that it dates from Alfie’s pre Les Mis days and is therefore less well known. Again, having said that, most of the songs here (click here for the complete track list) also appear on Alfie’s later You’ll Never Walk Alone which recently came back into the Classical Top Ten and stayed there for several weeks.

To those who are in the former category, I would say that you definitely do not have to be religious to appreciate the beauty of Onward. Alfie’s voice soars over each song and as with most of his music, I struggle to think of anyone else singing them now. As a man of faith, I think he brings something extra to this album for that reason – it was interesting that he chose Be Still, My Soul as his faith song on Good Morning Sunday in 2014. It clearly means a lot to him. He also sang this particular hymn on Songs of Praise, The Big Sing in 2012:

In my view, the most successful tracks are Britten’s Balulalow, Rossini’s Cujus Animam and the sheer beauty of Alison Krauss’s A Living Prayer which opens the album. For different reasons, all three tracks showcase the depth and strength of Alfie’s voice as well as his classical training and technique. In his book, Alfie says that he would like to re-record A Living Prayer as he felt they couldn’t do it justice due to time constraints during recording; wouldn’t it also be lovely if he also revisited Cujus Animam?

Although from reading Alfie’s story you might think that this is Alfie’s least favourite album (or at least least professionally satisfying), the material is amongst some of his most regularly performed repertoire from his early recording career. That is probably because of the religious nature of the tracks and Alfie has appeared at a fair amount of concerts and TV programmes with a religious feel; The MoTab Christmas Concert, Songs of Praise and The Festival of Remembrance spring to mind.

I find that I don’t listen to Onward as much as I do other Alfie albums although I do find that as each of Alfie’s albums has it’s own voice, there is often a space in my life that Onward fits into perfectly. If peace and solace is what you need, Onward is a pretty good place to start. Click on the image below to order:

Alfie’s autobiography, My Story, is also available:

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On This Day, 25 February 2007, Alfie Boe Sang…

The Number 2 song in our Alfie Boe Best Ever Song poll, A Living Prayer. This was in Liverpool when Alfie was supporting the Fron Male Voice Choir on their nationwide tour.

A Living Prayer is from the Onward album and I was surprised to find it was so popular with fans. Many voters gave a reason for nominating and voting for this song and a common thread through all the stories was the soaring melody and beauty of Alfie’s voice helping them through a tough time. Written and recorded by Alison Krauss in 1994, here is Alfie (A Living Prayer starts at 9 mins 33):

Onward is available here:

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How Did You Find Alfie Boe – Survey Results!

Back in November 2014 I asked “How Did You Find Alfie Boe” and I’m pleased to say that lots of you responded, being only too pleased to tell me how and when you first heard that beautiful voice. A few of you have been on board Alfie’s musical train right since the very beginning – and by that I mean since he was singing locally in Lancashire! One of his many nephews and nieces even filled in the survey although I don’t know which one! One respondent had followed him since he was appearing regularly in opera and another couple since his first album, Classic FM Presents. Other reasons given were his 2007 appearance on Parkinson, other TV appearances, Desert Island Discs, through friends, surfing youtube, through hearing David Miller of Il Divo talk about Alfie and his performance at the Diamond Jubilee concert in 2012.

However, like most of us Alfie fans these days, the vast majority (82%) of the respondents found Alfie through Les Miserables. Of those 82%, just over half first saw and heard Alfie on a PBS 25th anniversary promotion and the others saw him either live or on the DVD of that concert. This is what one smitten fan said

Saw him on PBS in Florida, USA in March 2011 singing Jean Valjean role and stopped in my tracks when hearing that voice. Watched the whole O2 Les Misarables concert and then had to find out who this wonderful tenor is. YouTubed him and listened and read everything I could find on him. The Alfie and Matt Lucas video Nessun Dorma with his hands in his pockets was what clinched him for me. Joined his Facebook page and his own web page and since have met many wonderful fans of his who over the last 3 years have become good friends. All this from that one O2 performance.

After finding out how and when fans found Alfie, I then wanted to find out when they made their first Alfie related purchase, be it CD, DVD etc. I admit that I was expecting most responses to be “immediately” or very quickly, given the devotion shown to Alfie by fans. However, I was slightly surprised to find that although two thirds of responses indicated that a purchase was made either the same day or next day, the next highest response was months, at least 6-12. In three cases there was a wait of at least a year and one waited for 3.5 years before making up (her?) mind to buy a CD. Incidentally, the length of time before making a purchase and considering yourself to be “Boed” does not match up; with the exception of the Lancashire locals and the fan waiting 3.5 years, every single respondent considered themselves “Boed” immediately.

The survey then went on to ask which albums fans had in their collection. For this survey, I only considered Alfie’s albums released under his own name (not including Serenata which was released after the survey) and the collaboration with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Home for the Holidays. The rest of his recording career can be found on the Alfie Boe Discography. The results are:

Classic FM Presents – 61% of respondents own this

La Passione – 82%

Onward – 72%

Love Was A Dream – 69%

Bring Him Home – 98%

Alfie – 95%

Storyteller – 95%

Trust – 90%

Home for the Holidays – 37%

As you can see, the most owned albums are the Decca ones released since the Les Mis connection although La Passione is the most popular album of Alfie’s back catalogue. It occurs to me as I sit writing these results up, that I should have asked in which order these albums were purchased; it would have been interesting to see how many people had La Passione before Les Mis. I suspect that like me, the answer would be not many, otherwise Alfie would surely not have contemplated becoming a personal trainer for the SLC police.

DVD ownership is something else again – this time, there were only four choices as only two tours have been filmed:

Les Mis 25th concert – 96% own this

Bring Him Home tour – 83%

Storyteller tour – 75%

Home for the Holidays – 43%

Perhaps the relatively high amount of people owning the DVD of Home for the Holidays reflects the low amount owning it on CD (they don’t see the need to have it twice), otherwise the completely predictable result is that Les Mis is the most owned DVD. Of course this was expected, given that 82% of us found Alfie that way to start with. This is also borne out by 66% of those owning it citing it as their favourite of the DVD’s. Storyteller comes next, followed by Bring Him Home and Home for the Holidays again bringing up the rear.

Those of you who completed the survey will remember I also asked you which album you preferred – to find out the answer, you’ll have to be a subscriber!

Just add your email details to the box on the right of the page and you’ll receive the password to the relevant blog post – plus an email containing links to 4 Alfie photos not available in the gallery.

Merry Christmas – On This Day, 23 December 2007 Alfie Boe Sang…

…I Wonder As I Wander on Songs of Praise:

Love this song and the intensity Alfie brings to it. He later returned to this song for the MoTab Christmas Concert in 2012. This arrangement, featured on Alfie’s Onward album, is by John Rutter, from a hymn collected and put together by John Jacob Niles in 1933.

If you haven’t yet seen it, Alfie Boe on Carols by Kindlelight is now available on Amazon Prime in the UK and is also available for Amazon US and Germany customers. I highly recommend taking out membership (you can get one month’s free membership on trial from Amazon UK) to see this – Alfie is superb on his two songs, Hark the Herald Angels Sing and Elton John’s Step Into Christmas and you also get to see Sol3 Mio and Laura Wright sing two songs each as well. In case you can’t see it, here is a clip of Hark the Herald Angels Sing:

Onward and the MoTab Christmas Concert are both available here:

home for the holidays

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Merry Christmas!

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Alfie Boe’s Best Ever Song: The Top!

So, we have finally reached the end – numbers 1 and 2 of Alfie Boe’s Top Ten Best Ever Songs. Now, when I first conceived the idea of a poll to find fans favourite Alfie song, I admit I was keen to see the list. Little did I think that the long list (click here for the playlist on Spotify) would run to 36 songs and over 2 hours! The songs chosen were from all of Alfie’s albums but the results of the Top Ten vote were a little surprising – most fans say they love Alfie’s classical side but that is not reflected here.

I can also admit that I was hoping that fans everywhere would be reminded that Alfie’s recorded repertoire is very diverse and is not just about Bring Him Home! Having said that, I can now reveal that the number 2 song is…A Living Prayer, which leaves the top spot taken by, you guessed it, Bring Him Home!

Leaving aside BHH (for the moment) let’s talk about A Living Prayer. Recorded for the Onward album, I was surprised to see it in the top ten at all and even more surprised to see it come in at number 2 behind Alfie’s most well known song. Many voters gave a reason for nominating and voting for this song and a common thread through all the stories was the soaring melody and beauty of Alfie’s voice helping them through a tough time. Written and recorded by Alison Krauss in 1994, here is Alfie’s version (it’s also a video featuring Alfie looking most like Dec Donnelly!):

And so we come to Bring Him Home, without question Alfie’s most popular and famous song. The vast majority of fans who have come to know Alfie since 2010 (myself included) have done so through Les Miserables, Jean Val Jean and Bring Him Home – Alfie’s star really was born at the 25th anniversary concert. Everything that has come since started on that day and ensures that Alfie will continue to sing Bring Him Home for as long as the demand is there. So forever basically!

There are so many videos of Alfie singing this song that I was at a loss to pick one – hope the one I went for is ok! I chose it as I was there that night, as were a lot of you, and many fans I am proud to call friends can be seen there:

If you don’t yet have Onward or Bring Him Home, just click on the images to order from Amazon.

Alfie’s new album, Serenata can also be ordered from Amazon:

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Alfie Boe’s Best Ever Song: The Top Ten!

Thank you for sending in your nominations for Alfie Boe’s Best Ever Song and then voting for your favourite. The poll has now closed and the Top Ten is here!

Hopefully, your favourite has made the short list but if not, click here to listen to the new Spotify playlist and choose a new favourite to vote for. Also, due to popular demand, this poll is open to multiple votes! Time to find out if Bring Him Home is indeed the fan’s favourite Alfie Boe song or if we prefer something else.

The longer playlist (still available on Spotify) contains songs from all Alfie’s albums, and the Top Ten continues this, albeit with one exception. Judging from this, classical and rock are the favourite Alfie sounds. Bring Him Home is the only musical theatre song to make the grade.

So come on, get voting! The poll will be open for two weeks and then we’ll be counting down the Top Ten in the lead up to the UK release of Serenata.

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Happy Easter Alfie Boe Fans

If you celebrate Easter as a religious festival or just enjoy eating chocolate eggs, this time of year is a Happy one. Alfie is home in America at the moment, getting ready for the US release of Trust, although he has unfortunately hurt his back – get well soon Alfie!

As most fans will be aware, Alfie is from a strong Christian background and has often spoken of his faith and what it means to him. He has also released a CD, Onward, which showcases Alfie singing hymns and spiritual songs. Alfie sang one of these, Be Still My Soul, during the Songs of Praise Big Sing 2012:

Happy Easter!

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