LIBERA RELEASE THEIR FIRST CHRISTMAS ALBUM

US release: 1 November 2011

5099908435323 (Deluxe) / 5099908863522 (CD) / 5099908435354 (digital)
5099972982655 (iTunes exclusive)

“They come from the mean streets of South London but sing like little angels”
(The Evening Standard)

Libera’s long-awaited Christmas album features a mixture of popular secular and sacred Christmas and winter holiday repertoire. Ideally suited to this type of music, the boy band’s unique “celestial sounds for the modern age” are aimed at music lovers seeking peace and respite in the midst of today’s chaotic world.

“We’re delighted to be releasing our first ever Christmas album on EMI”, said Robert Prizeman, Libera’s Music Director. “It’s something the group has long wanted to do, having performed a number of these songs on stage over the past few years as well as featuring on Aled Jones’s Christmas albums. We’re very proud of the results.”
The musical selections include traditional favourites such as White Christmas, Once in Royal David’s City, Silent Night and O Holy Night, as well as Billy Joel’s Lullaby (Goodnight my Angel). The songs are performed a cappella or accompanied by combinations of keyboard, flute, clarinet, recorder, violin, cello, and percussion. Robert Prizeman conducts.

Previous best-selling albums from the three-time Classical BRIT-nominated Libera include Peace, Angel Voices, Free, Visions, and New Dawn. Peace, released in 2010, reached #1 in the UK, Japanese and Philippine classical charts; in the United States, the release went to #2. Libera’s video for Going Home, from their PBS special, has had over 1.5 million hits on You Tube. Libera is currently the best-selling group of its kind, reflecting the surge of interest in choirs as a result of television shows such as Last Choir Standing and Glee. EMI Classics has released Libera’s albums exclusively since 2004.

Libera was formed in 1999. Its name comes from the band’s signature song based on the Libera Me portion of the Requiem Mass. The 24 boys aged 7-16 who make up Libera come from a variety of backgrounds and attend local schools in South London. Although they are boys and they sing, they do not think of themselves as choirboys, but rather as an alternative kind of boy band. They love to play football, skateboard, listen to R’n’B and punk music with their peers but, through their involvement in Libera, they have also travelled the world, recorded movie soundtracks and CDs and served as backing singers to Elton John, Björk and Pavarotti.

In the US, Libera has made numerous concert tours and television appearances, including a nationwide PBS special, a tribute to Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys at the Kennedy Center Honors, a Papal Mass at New York’s Yankee Stadium before a capacity congregation of 65,000 and on ‘Hour of Power’, transmitted via television and internet to millions of listeners around the world.

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