Making of the album

The members of Amici Forever met when rehearsing and performing at opera venues around the world. Tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

 Geoff Sewell, originally from New Zealand, came up with the idea of an "opera band" mixing traditional opera with contemporary pop. The band features two tenors, two soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 singers and a bass-baritone

Bass-baritone

A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing three Wagnerian roles: the Dutchman in Der fliegende...

 singer.

Amici Forever signed with Arista Records

Arista Records

Arista was an American record label. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment and operated under the RCA Music Group. The label was founded in 1974 by Clive Davis, who formerly worked for CBS Records...

 and started playing high profile gigs such as the FA Cup

FA Cup

The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football and is the oldest association football competition in the world. The "FA Cup" is run by and named after The Football Association and usually refers to the English men's...

 final and the English rugby union final. Nick Patrick, who had produced albums by the Gipsy Kings

Gipsy Kings

The Gipsy Kings are a group of musicians from Arles and Montpellier, who perform in Spanish with an Andalucían accent. Although group members were born in France, their parents were mostly gitanos, Spanish Romani people who fled Catalonia during the 1930s Spanish Civil War. Chico Bouchikhi is of...

, Tina Turner

Tina Turner

Tina Turner is an American singer and actress whose career has spanned more than 50 years. She has won numerous awards and her achievements in the rock music genre have led many to call her the "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll".Turner started out her music career with husband Ike Turner as a member of the...

 and Marvin Gaye

Marvin Gaye

Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....

 produced the bands first album The Opera Band. The album mixes opera classics such as "Nessun Dorma" with pop standards such as "Unchained Melody" and "Requiem for a Soldier" from the Band of Brothers soundtrack.

Chart and critical success

It was released on January 13, 2004 and has reached number 74 in the Billboard 200

Billboard 200

The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

 album charts in 2004 and reached the top 50 of the ARIA Australian album charts. The album has also reached number 2 on the Billboard Classical Crossover and Heatseeker charts and number one on the ARIA Australian classical album chart as well as top 5 in the UK classical charts. The album was nominated for "Album of the Year" at the Classical BRIT Awards

Classical Brit Awards

The Classic BRIT Awards are an annual awards ceremony held in the United Kingdom covering aspects of classical music, and are the classical equivalent of pop music's BRIT Awards....

 held at the Royal Albert Hall

Royal Albert Hall

The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....

 on May 26, 2004 and was performed at the Awards.

Track listing

1. "Prayer in the Night" (based on Handel's "Sarabande")
2. "Senza Catene (Unchained Melody
   Unchained Melody
   "Unchained Melody" is a 1955 song with music by Alex North and lyrics by Hy Zaret. It has become one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century, by some counts having spawned over 500 versions in hundreds of different languages....
   
   )"
3. "Canto Alla Vita"
4. "Vita Mia"
5. "Requiem for a Soldier "
6. "Whisper of Angels" (based on Faure's "Pavane")
7. "The Pearl Fishers"
8. "Soave Sia Il Vento"
9. "Nimrod: Lux Æterna"
10. "Song to the Moon"
11. "Zadok the Priest"
12. "Nessun Dorma
    Nessun dorma
    Nessun dorma is an aria from the final act of Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot, and is one of the best-known tenor arias in all opera. It is sung by Calaf, il principe ignoto , who falls in love at first sight with the beautiful but cold Princess Turandot...
    
    "
13. "Adeste Fidelis"
14. "Olympia: Eternal Flame" (Bonus track used as theme to BBC
    BBC
    The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
    
    's 2004 Olympic Games coverage)

External links

• Music Guide The Opera Band page