Brian Kay

Singer and conductor Brian Kay is perhaps most recognizable as the founding bass of The King's Singers. However, he also remains active as a conductor and has served as the presenter on many radio programs. Kay's vocal credits include one for the lowest frog in Paul McCartney's "We All Stand Together." In 2025, he conducted the vocal ensemble Theatro on the album Play, Music! Songs from Shakespeare's Plays. Kay was born on May 12, 1944, in England's Yorkshire region and grew up in Upper Poppleton (not to be confused with Nether Poppleton). His parents were musical, and his instincts for music developed when he attended a Methodist secondary school in Colwyn Bay, Wales, where the headmaster wrote in-house musicals in emulation of Gilbert and Sullivan. Kay attended King's College, Cambridge University, where he co-founded the a cappella sextet The King's Singers in 1968. The group was immediately successful, both in performance and on recordings; the group's debut album, from 1971, contained American traditional and popular songs as well as classical standards, and was reissued in 1994 on the Chandos label. Kay remained with The King's Singers until 1982. Kay continued to sing, providing his voice not only to McCartney but also to the makers of the film Amadeus, where he sang the part of Papageno in Mozart's The Magic Flute and was the voice of librettist Emanuel Schikaneder. However, he was increasingly often active as a choral conductor, leading many groups, including the Cecilian Singers of Leicester (1987-1991), the Cheltenham Bach Choir (1989-1997), the Burford Singers (beginning in 2002), and The Really Big Chorus, beginning in 2005. He remained principal conductor of The Really Big Chorus as of the mid-2020s. Kay has also served as president of the Leith Hill Musical Festival and director of the Huddersfield Choral Society. He was the presenter or host on many BBC radio programs, including Friday Night Is Music Night and Brian Kay's Light Programme. He was chorus master for the 2012 album Karl Jenkins: The Peacemakers, and his King's Singers arrangements have continued to be used by such groups as The Gesualdo Six (as on their Christmas album of 2019). Kay also directs the ensemble Theatro, which released the album Play, Music! Songs from Shakespeare's Plays in 2025 on the Avie label. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he wrote an autobiography, Music, My Life: A Gallimaufry of Musical Memories. ~ James Manheim, Rovi