By David F. Rooney
If you enjoy the power and music of the human voice then you certainly won’t want to miss Romanza when tenors Philip Grant, Ken Lavigne and Paul Ouellette appear in concert at the Performing Arts Centre on November 25.
“This will be our third time in Revelstoke and we quite enjoy coming here,” Grant said in an interview on Thursday.
“I remember all the snow the last time we were here.”
This year’s concert will mix favourites from the classical and opera worlds as well as traditional ballads and rhythm and blues songs, and seasonal songs appropriate for the Christmas period.
If you’ve never seen Romanza in performance then you should consider shelling out some coin for their upcoming concert.
These guys have great voices and just as importantly they know how to have fun with a crowd. They interact with the people in front of them and work as hard at getting them to laugh as they do at their singing. They really are quite good.
“We take our music seriously… but ourselves? Not at all!” said Grant who started the group. He is the only one of the three who is not a professional musician.
“I only started singing at age 22. I heard a guy singing vibrato (a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch) and wanted to learn more about singing — so I did.”
That a lifelong love of learning has propelled Romanza along to 300 professional performances and the creation of two CDs. He also completed an MBA at Simon Fraser last year and is now working on a doctorate in marketing and business development.
Lavigne is a singer, composer, communicator and all-around entertainer. He loves ballads, show tunes and classical crossover hits in the style of Andrea Bocelli and Josh Groban. He debuted at Carnegie Hall in January 2009 with the New York Pops and has regularly performed with multi-Grammy winner David Foster. You can learn more about him at www.kenlavigne.com.
Paul Ouellette is a three-time winner of the Western Canada Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, has performed roles with the Vancouver and Edmonton opera companies and sung with the Vancouver Symphony. For four years he toured across North America with pop opera group Destino. He has also performed at the Miss America Pageant in Las Vegas, the Children’s Miracle Network hosted by Marie Osmond at Florida’s Disney World, the Beijing Summer Olympics and Romanza’s Carnegie Hall debut in New York. His website is at www.paulouellettevocalstudios.com.
You can learn more about Romanza at their website, www.romanza.ca, and even watch videos of some of their past performances.
