Atlantic City is about to get a healthy dose of classical culture courtesy of a very unlikely source.
Atlantic City is about to get a healthy dose of classical culture courtesy of a very unlikely source.
The Texas Tenors, a trio of good ol’ boys from the Lone Star State, will perform an eclectic program of music ranging from a classically infused version of John Denver’s “Thank God I’m A Country Boy” to Frank Sinatra’s life anthem “My Way” to Giacomo Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma,” one of the late opera legend Luciano Pavarotti’s signature arias.
The Texas Tenors, a vocal group formed in 2009 specifically to audition for the TV talent showcase America’s Got Talent, will bring their inventive spin on popular and classical music to Borgata’s Music Box on Sunday, Sept. 23, where they’ll perform with the 60 members of the Bay-Atlantic Symphony.
The Tenors placed fourth on the 2009 edition of AGT and haven’t stopped working since, alternating between a semi-permanent gig in Branson, Missouri, and tours of the United States and Europe.
JC Fisher, a singer with country and gospel roots, had the idea to form a vocal group with his two closest friends, pop and contemporary vocalist Marcus Collins and John Hagen, whose musical background is steeped in opera and the classics.
“It was kind of a natural progression growing up with these guys and listening to them sing,” Fisher says during a phone call from the Tenors’ Branson Theater.
Since they each had a unique and distinctive vocal style, Fisher had an idea that had never been fully explored.
“[We] have different voices, but we’re all Tenors, and I love the tenor voice,” Fisher explains. “[Hagen] has a more opera-classical sound, [Collins] has his fantastic Broadway and contemporary sound and I do a little country and gospel. I never heard classical and opera with country music in the same concert, and I just thought what a neat idea and opportunity.”
That’s when he decided to form the Texas Tenors and audition for the TV show. And when the three friends got serious about forming the new act, picking the music they’d sing became the first challenge.
“We all have experience with stage productions, so we just put together a collection of music that we love, and we took a lot of our favorites and pieced them together into a show,” Collins adds. “And by trial and error, we came up with a show we’ve done over 425 times.”
Hagen writes the arrangements for the group, which he says comes fairly easily because the three singers have been such close friends since they were kids.
“I know all three of our voices so well, it just comes naturally to me,” Hagen says. “I hear our voices in my head. We all have our strengths (and) some do some things better than others. So we play to the strengths, and it just works out great. The things I can’t do, [Collins] can, and vice versa. And so we kind of cover the bases between the three of us.”
Fisher says the trio often gets quizzical looks when they rehearse with big orchestras, especially the symphonies, who aren’t familiar with the group’s musical style. But it doesn’t take long for the Tenors to prove to the musicians that they’re not three guys who lucked out on a television show.
Fourteen years after his eponymous sitcom left the television airwaves following a ratings-topping nine seasons, Jerry Seinfeld has finally reached the point where his art imitates his life, and vice versa.
Atlantic City is staring down the barrel of Labor Day weekend after experiencing the single most diverse array of live entertainment ever presented here during one summer. Not just during the last 34 summers of the casino era, either, but throughout its entire gaudy, bawdy and, occasionally tawdry 160-year-old past.
Members of the Bay-Atlantic Symphony will present a three-day free musical extravaganza at various indoor and outdoor venues in Atlantic City Friday through Sunday, Oct. 14-16.
“This became the major way station for liquor during Prohibition,” says Lisa Kennard, one of the Inn’s owners since April. “They’d bring it up the intracoastal, have dinner, play cards, have a few drinks, do their thing with the women, and at night they’d load the liquor into small canoes and ship it up the back bays into Atlantic City.”
There is one thing the Jed Gaylin, music director and conductor of the Bay-Atlantic Symphony doesn’t want to hear as he prepares for a Beatles tribute and show at the Borgata this Sunday, Sept. 26 ...
As the Bay-Atlantic Symphony saw its 25th anniversary approaching last year, Paul Herron, executive director of the orchestra, and symphony execs decided they needed to make a splash. Long known for playing in Cape May in the summer and at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and Cumberland County College, the symphony decided it was time to test the waters of Atlantic City.
Atlantic County Freeholder Alisa Cooper is no stranger to the arts. A music teacher in Egg Harbor Township and the owner of her own music production company, Alisa Cooper Orchestras, Cooper has been ...
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1. Jan said... on Apr 2, 2013 at 03:45PM
“I heard them for the first time on Larry's Country Diner. They were awesome. Wish they would come back on soon .I am also going to order their CD. Don't miss a chance to hear them.”