March 11, 2018

1983

Two concert tours of the USA included our second self-promoted concert at Carnegie Hall and the first in a long series of sell-out concerts at Washington DC’s Kennedy Centre. The latter was a benefit for a well-known choral group in the area, the Alexandria Harmonisers who had retained a local entrepreneur, Ken Fischer, to get things organised. With an eye to maximum publicity, he had organised an appearance at the National Press Club. At that time, the Washington Redskins were Super Bowl champions and Ken asked us if we could bear this closely in mind. Eventually we were introduced and launched straight into Morley’s madrigal ‘Now is the Month of Maying’. This was not at all what they had been hoping for, but when after a few bars we thundered into ‘Hail to the Redskins!’ without missing a beat, the contrast was tremendous and from that point on we could not put a foot wrong.