British humor. Or, “humour.” The very phrase seems like an oxymoron, the antithesis of the stiff upper lip, stuffed shirt image of a Brit. Yet, as Monty Python and Dame Edna have proven, those Brits do love a good laugh, especially at their own expense.
The London-based a cappella quartet Cantabile blends classic English humor with solid musical skill to produce one of the most popular vocal acts in the world.
Cantabile (pronounced Can-TAH-bih-lay), brings its show to the Admiral Theater Jan. 26, as part of the theater’s Cabaret Series.
As Cantabile member Michael Steffan said via e-mail recently, “The evening is, should I say, not entirely lacking in the comedy of British understatement.” You can say that again.
Founding members Steffan and Richard Bryan met while attending Cambridge University and performing in the Footlights Comedy Revue — the same troupe that birthed Monty Python.
Steffan said the Admiral Theatre audience can expect “everything from the sublime to the ridiculous and back again: four immaculately-betuxedoed gentlemen speaking the common language that divides us — and singing music that unites us.”
Their program has been called “From Monteverdi to Monty Python,” and includes bits such as “The History of Music in Four Minutes,” with full symphonic sound, produced a cappella, and a cast of thousands, also supplied by the four members, and a 78 RPM version of “Strangers in the Night,” complete with pops and scratches.
“Our music is very easy to enjoy,” Steffan said. “Few people expect to come out of an evening like ours, with some ‘virtuoso’ singing, weeping with laughter.”
Cantabile was formed 25 years ago at Cambridge, and over the years has given more than 2,000 live performances and produced 13 albums. This tour finds them in Bremerton one week, Idaho and Montana the next, then back to Europe for shows in France and Spain. Then it’s back to North America for a tour of Eastern Canada, then on to Corsica.
The group has performed at many prestigious venues for equally prestigious audiences, including a performance at Buckingham Palace for Queen Elizabeth.
Last year, Cantabile performed more than 100 shows, from Switzerland to Asia, and spent time in the recording studio working on an album of “serious religious work.”
It’s a schedule that has taken its toll on the group — Cantabile has gone through 24 singers, some lasting only a few performances.
The current incarnation includes counter tenor Richard Bryan, tenor Steven Brooks, tenor Mark Fleming and baritone Michael Steffan.
All of the members have impressive musical CVs (that’s Curriculum Vitae, a fancy word for resumé) that include hefty degrees from ivy-covered colleges in jolly old England.
Steffan hails for Wales, and after attending Cambridge returned to Cardiff to study at the Welsh College of Music and Drama.
In his long career with Cantabile he considers two highlights to be receiving first prize in the Eurovision International Star Festival and logging the highest-ever performance by a vocal group in a hot air balloon.
As he explained it, that event took place at a “Voices” festival in the lowlands of Holland.
“As it was the low country, we might have been hundreds of feet above ground in our balloon, but only a few — if that — above sea level.”
Co-founder Bryan attended Cambridge University, where he directed the choir, performed in the Footlights Comedy Revue and ran the 110 meter hurdles.
Brooks was bitten by the music bug as a 4-year-old in Belgium. At 12 he attended an elite music school where he began writing musicals and pantos. He also took up the pipe organ before deciding to go with the more portable instrument, his own voice.
He composed and sang opera and engaged in other legitimate musical avenues, but then he saw a small newspaper ad: “wanted: classically trained high tenor, with good sense of humour. Please bring a piece of music with that in mind.”
For his Cantabile audition Brooks sang “I never harmed an onion,” an aria performed by Ralph the dog, on the Muppets Show, and he was in.
Fleming attended Trinity School, where he was a member of the highly-regarded Trinity Boys Choir, and as a violinist, led the school orchestra. He recalled a memorable moment when he led the orchestra with a broken pants zipper. He reportedly was told not to enjoy the concert too much.
He went on to post-graduate work at the Royal College of Music in London, where he ran an early music group and “pretended to be interested in opera.”
Fleming arranges and orchestrates songs for Cantabile and has written music for Shakespeare productions, including “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” performed at the reconstructed Globe Theatre in London.
Cantabile may not be your average a cappella group, but that’s what makes it interesting.
Cantabile performs Jan. 26 at the Admiral Theatre, 515 Pacific Ave., Bremerton.
Dinner seating is at 6:30 p.m. and the show begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are $49 main floor with dinner or $18 all seats show only. Tickets are available at the box office or by phone at (360) 373-6743.
