12 April 2023
Taking the impressive title of the world’s longest running classical crossover act, the Ten Tenors have been a concert experience since 1995 - with music featuring breathtaking ten part harmonies that have been enjoyed by more than 90 million people worldwide. They have shared the stage with such icons as Lionel Richie, Rod Stewart, Andrea Boccelli, Willie Nelson, Alanis Morissette and Christina Aguilera and released 15 albums, selling more than 1.2 million.
The Ten Tenors are in the midst of a nationwide tour of New Zealand, and one of the longest-standing members, Cameron Barclay, just happens to be New Zealander. Cameron took some time out of his busy schedule to talk to ARTicle about his extensive artistic background, journey to join the group and to give us the skinny on the current tour.
How did you get to be one of the Ten Tenors?
It's a while ago now so hopefully I can remember... It was back in 2013, that was when my audition happened. I started in 2014. It was through some friends of mine. I was at an event one night and I got chatting to someone who said, “oh, what do you do? You're a singer?” I was like, "yeah, I'm a singer." She said. “Do you want a job? My friend is the musical director of the Ten Tenors, why don't you send me your stuff?” And so I thought OK, maybe, sure. Everyone talks, but then this person actually followed up on it. Within about three or four days, I had the job. I did an online Skype audition and all that stuff, which obviously was less common back then than it is now, and I was away to America about a month later.
Did you always want to be a singer?
I mean, sort of, from the time that I was a teenager, late teenager onwards. I started out as an actor really, through school, and did shows and all that kind of thing. I lived in Europe for my gap year and then I came back and started doing law and arts, but then ended up changing to music, to do opera and classical music.
Are the Ten Tenors competitive? Do you scrap over who gets the best solos or is it more democratic?
No, absolutely not. The way it's all structured and the way the group is designed, what its strength is really is the fact that we’re all very different voices. Everybody thinks of a tenor as being a classical operatic tenor, but Freddie Mercury is a tenor, Meatloaf is a tenor, Ed Sheeran is a tenor. There's all different types of tenors and all those different kinds of voices are represented in the group. So often it’s the person whose voice is best suited to that style of music who gets that solo. It’s not so much competitive as it's kind of obvious who's going to get which part, because that's what they're good at. You know you're not going to hear me rock screaming. You're not going to hear me doing Freddie Mercury or something, that's not my skill set. I do more of the classical stuff.
Do you have a favourite piece to sing?
Do I have a favourite piece? Look, it kind of changes all the time. My long-time favourite arrangement that we did was David Bowie’s Heroes. We did a classical-ish long form arrangement of that about five or six years ago and it's always been one of my favourites. But in this show? Interestingly, last year when we were on tour in America, while we were on the road and going through the Southern states of America, we were trying to work out the theme of our next show and distil down what it meant to be in this group. We were talking with our manager and settled upon the idea that really, we're musicians, we're performers. And off the road and on the road and when we could, we were listening to songs from the places that we were going to. Artists from those places and because it’s the South, we became heavily influenced by country music of all things.
Last year we put together a show called The Highwaymen which was really, really interesting material for me because I've never been a country music fan and we arranged the songs in our style. There's only one or two of those songs in the New Zealand show that we're doing, but it's one of my absolute favourites. It's Wichita Lineman and it's this really beautiful atmospheric version of it. I love singing it.
What's your favourite venue to perform in?
For me personally, it's probably the Aotea Centre in Auckland because it's kind of my home. It’s one of the places that I grew up going to see shows and it's always really special to go back there. But in terms of around the world, we've been in some incredible places. Oh, goodness, that's a really hard question to answer actually. I mean, Sydney Opera House was incredible. We've done open air stuff like this massive concert in in the Netherlands a couple of years ago, which was in this huge town square. That was incredible. We went to this theatre just recently in Orlando, Florida. It was a 3000 seat theatre. We walked in and we thought, it's a ballroom, we’re not performing in here. And the next minute, all of the venue techs came out and they were like, oh, just you wait. And they pushed this button and it took about 15 minutes or so, but the whole ballroom transformed into a theatre. Like thousands of seats. The floor went down, and all these seats turned around and came out of the floor. Then the stage lifted up and the proscenium arch came in. It was one of the most epic technological things I've ever seen. It was this brand-new theatre in Orlando.
What's been your proudest career moment?
The proudest career moment? Oh gosh. Oh wow. I think it's always to do with coming home. Kiwis, because our country is so small, we all tend to have to go overseas to make work for ourselves, especially in this industry and I think coming home to perform for your loved ones, and to show them what you do and all that kind of stuff. I think that's probably it. Those are some of the career highlights. I can't really put a finger on anything else right now. I mean, internationally, probably when we performed in Berlin in 2018 with Andrea Bocelli. That was quite fun, and there were all these other wonderful artists there that night. Maybe that.
If you could go back and talk to your teenage self, what career advice would you give yourself?
I would probably say don't be afraid of diversifying. I think when you're young you don’t know that. I spent ten years only doing singing and I think that gig economy, that side hustle kind of economy is really necessary now. Don't be afraid of studying different things. And maybe trying, even engaging in other careers at the same time. I think that's probably what I'd say to myself, but also do not give up. Because I do love this career and this lifestyle. You just have to keep working on your voice, keep studying. Those two things.
What music have you been listening to recently? Is there anything you can recommend for our readers?
You know what I've been listening to? To be honest, recently, I've listened to a lot of country music. Like Willie Nelson and stuff like that. I never thought that I would do that. My dad would be happy ‘cos he loves country music.
What can audiences expect from this show the Ten Tenors are doing?
Oftentimes we find that a lot of people walk into the show expecting ten guys in suits, singing serious music all night at them. And yes, we do take the music incredibly seriously and we take the craft of it incredibly seriously and we work really hard. We're really rigorous with the way we study the music, but the show itself and the way that it's presented is actually kind of informal. And it's like we're just guys, sharing some music and some stories with the audience. Everything from the most poignant, beautiful song to absolute party bangers. And you'll get your Nessun Dorma, but we’ll back it up with Bohemian Rhapsody, or even Tina Turner. So it's a lot of fun. A lot of times we find that husbands, for example, get dragged along by their wives and then end up loving it more than their wives by the end of the night. Which is always funny.
The Ten Tenors are performing at venues across Aotearoa 13-30 April. You can purchase tickets here.
