By Emily Thomas
Christmas is the season of Christ, love, music and gift giving and Voice Male, the national award-winning contemporary a cappella group will welcome the Christmas season next week with their Christmas concert.
“Christmas is one of my favorite times of year to put on a concert, because we get to sing our normal fun music along with great Christmas music,” said bass singer Mike Willson, from Clinton, Utah.
They received in top honor in a cappella music, which was awarded by Contemporary a cappella Society of America for their Christmas Jingles holiday album.
As a group they have traveled all over the western states to sing for audiences and have traveled as Far East as Florida. They have received calls asking for performances all over the United States.
“It has been fulfilling and fun to travel and around the country meeting new fans and seeing new places,” said high tenor, Richard McAllister, from Lehi.
They will be performing at Thanksgiving Point December 16 at 7:00 p.m. and other places across Utah, several times during the next two weeks; tickets and schedules of their performances are available at www.voicemalemusic.com
During one of the group”s past memorable Christmas concerts they sang, “We wish you a Merry Christmas.” When they sang the part, “Oh, bring us some figgy pudding,” an overly enthusiastic audience member threw a four pack of Jell-O pudding on the stage hitting Voice Male high tenor Richard McAllister in the face.
The tenor in the group, John Huff, from Lehi, said the reason anyone comes to their concert is because of good clean fun and the music is for all age groups.
The group guarantees the audience will leave the concert with a smile on their face.
Their newest CD, Voice Male Hims II, came out recently adding to their collection of seven albums.
McAllister, Huff and Willson were in agreement when they said their favorite song on the CD is “There is a Green Hill Far away.”
The other Voice Male group members are tenor, Mike Bearden; baritone, Phil Kesler; and vocal percussion, John Luthy.
To record and edit one song on the Hims II CD it takes about 12 hours in the recording studio.
Huff said in 1994, when the group first started they set goals because they wanted to succeed.
“We wanted to sell at least a 100 copies of our tapes during the first year and we booked a auditorium that seated at least 400 people for the end of the year,” Huff said.
Wanting to get Voice Male”s name out they booked any performance they could, which resulted in over 200 concerts in one year.
By the end of the year their concert was sold out, and more than 100 tapes sold, they felt the sweet success of many hours of “paying the piper,” Huff said. The amount of time they spent 11 to 13 hours a week practicing.
They caught their break when Bob Ahlander, director of BYU”s Vocal Point performance group said Voice Male had the potential to go bigger.
He helped them in a variety of ways and introduced them to Excel Entertainment, establish their name among Latter Day Saint music lovers, and after hard work and perseverance the group has sold more than 90,000 CD”s.
“It is an overwhelming experience to see something you”ve created selling in stores,” Wilson said. “It really hit me, when my parents and friends called me to say they saw my CD when they were shopping.”
Wilson said Huff”s father provided the support that the group needed to succeed, had he not been there to keep them going, Voice Male might not exist today.
