“They come from the mean streets of south London but sing like little angels” (The Evening Standard)
Familiar to audiences across the world, the boys have a stunningly original sound, which is at once both ancient and modern. Their distinctive flowing white robes symbolise the traditional origins of their style - yet their music reaches across the generations to a new mainstream audience. LIBERA’s success in album charts around the world bears witness to the extraordinary appeal of this unique ‘boy band’. Enchanting audiences wherever they go, they have attracted an enthusiastic fan base in many countries, particularly the United States, Great Britain, Japan, Korea and this year also in the Philippines.
Peace follows the success of Libera’s best-selling albums Angel Voices, Free, Visions and New Dawn. Each CD has been characterised by the ensemble’s distinctive celestial, shimmering sound with mystical chords and ecstatic harmonies. The programme comprises songs drawn from plainsong and traditional hymns, based on themes by Mozart, Saint-Saëns, César Franck and Chopin and by Robert Prizeman and John Rutter.
Libera’s founder, the composer/arranger/conductor Robert Prizeman, said, "It is a great privilege to work regularly with the young singers of Libera, an honour to play a part in their musical development, to be fired up and challenged by their talent, bubbling enthusiasm and freshness. Each new Libera album offers me unique opportunities to write and arrange music to suit the particular sounds and talents of the current group of boys. The writing and arranging responds to the singers and vice versa – there is a mutual inspiration."
The name Libera comes from the band’s signature song based on the Libera Me portion of the Requiem Mass. The boys who make up Libera are between the ages of seven and fourteen, come from a variety of backgrounds and attend local schools. ‘Normal” boys who still love to play football, skateboard, listen to R’n’B and punk music, through their involvement in Libera they have travelled the world, recorded movie soundtracks and CDs and served as backing singers to Elton John, Björk and Pavarotti. But, as one of the boys said, “The travelling and filming is fun but even if we didn’t go anywhere I’d still want to do it because I just love singing.” That joy of singing comes across clearly in their performances and on their recordings.
Libera’s original sound is both ancient and modern. Their flowing white robes symbolise the traditional origins of their style but their music reaches out across generations to a mainstream audience. Over the past decade, Libera have established an enthusiastic fan base in many countries, particularly the US, UK, Japan, the Philippines and Korea.
Libera is well known to British audiences through TV appearances and staged concerts at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, the Grassington Festival, Abbey Road Studios and Arundel Cathedral and at services in cathedrals and churches across the country. They have appeared as guests on BBC-TV’s ‘Last Choir Standing,’ on the soundtrack for a Waitrose TV campaign and as the subject of a documentary on ‘Songs of Praise.’ In recent months, the boys have appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, Dublin’s National Concert Hall and Belfast’s St Peter’s Cathedral.
In the US Libera is known through its concert tours and TV appearances including a nationwide PBS special filmed in Holland. The boys performed a tribute to Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007 before an audience that included President George W. Bush and celebrities including Robert de Niro, Cameron Diaz, Diana Ross and Steve Martin. Libera also participated in a Papal Mass at the climax of Pope Benedict XVI’s first visit to the USA in 2008 at New York’s Yankee Stadium before a capacity congregation of 65,000. In 2009, Libera toured the US with dates in, among others, Palm Springs, Los Angeles and Disneyland. The boys’ performance on the ‘Hour of Power’ was transmitted via television and internet to millions of people around the world.
