On 15th June, The King’s Singers will join forces with Gwilym Simcock (piano) and Malcolm Creese (double-bass) to pay tribute to two legendary musicians and highly respected composers, Richard Rodney Bennett and George Shearing in an evening concert at Cadogan Hall in London.

The evening will be hosted by radio presenter, conductor (and former King’s Singer), Brian Kay, who will also lead the pre-concert talk at 6.15 pm to explore the lives and music of these outstanding artists. Joining the discussion will be members of The King’s Singers past and present, Lady Ellie Shearing and other friends and musicians who worked with George Shearing and Richard Rodney Bennett.

Born in England, both Bennett and Shearing achieved worldwide success and both spent their later years, by coincidence, living on either side of New York’s Central Park. These Anglo-American musicians mastered the worlds of classical and jazz, both earning them titles ‘Knight of the Realm’. They were recognised for their compositional output – Bennett was particularly noted for his versatility as a composer, and was knighted for his Services to Music in 1998 and Shearing, who was knighted in 2007, wrote over 300 compositions, including the classic “Lullaby of Birdland,” which has become a jazz standard.

This special tribute concert will feature a programme of music written especially for The King’s Singers, arrangements from the Great American Songbook and tracks from The King’s Singers’ hit album ‘Get Happy’, for which the group collaborated with both Richard Rodney Bennett and George Shearing.