[ ClassicalX ] Ten Tenors sound as good as they look

The Ten Tenors, an Australian singing sensation that's hit the high note of international success, takes the Jackson stage this week.

Shows are 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday at Thalia Mara Hall. It's the final national touring act in W. Kessler Ltd.'s Best of Broadway 2008-2009 season.

One of the 10, Ben Clark, took a break on a "delicious" day off in Myrtle Beach, S.C., to scoop up a Frisbee and phone chat about the group's Nostalgica tour, plus revel in some nostalgia of his own.

"We're just down the beach getting some sun, and it reminds us a bit like home, actually - it's great," says Clark.

The show is a musical journey across genres and centuries.

"It really goes across broad and various types of music. We start off with opera and then we finish off in the 1980s, so I'm sure you can imagine we have a broad spectrum throughout the show.

"So it's a real adventure and it's a great show and we have just as much fun as the crowd."

Comprised of young Aussies ages 23 to 35, the Ten Tenors tempers vocal power with patter and play. "We have a set list which we run by and we have a way in which we introduce our songs, but anything that happens in between that time - if something was to happen, say, at a show that we did in Canada as opposed to a show we did in South Africa, we just run with it.

"If it makes the show better and it makes the crowd laugh, then we're going to go for it."

The group began as a fun part-time way to earn extra beer money for 10 young opera students from the Queensland Conservatorium in Brisbane, Australia. Its roots stretch back to 1995, but the group hit the world stage in 2002 in Germany. Other European and Asian countries followed and the Ten Tenors made their U.S. debut in 2003. They're on tour 10 months of the year.

The particular tenors change over time as group members marry and start families and new blood joins the crew. Clark has been with the Ten Tenors since last July.

The Ten Tenors travels with a bass player, drummer and piano player, providing "that really great live atmosphere that we're renowned for," Clark says. "We're a really happy little family."

Nostalgica, also a new album out by the Ten Tenors, is a travel through time, hitting the hugely popular music throughout the last century and even further back, from the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel to Neapolitan and Spanish songs. It's a varied group, with members coming from different musical backgrounds - rock 'n' roll, opera and musical theater. Hear Clark shine in the first line in Bohemian Rhapsody and with Moon River.

Folks familiar with the primarily operatic Three Tenors and Three Mo' Tenors might assume this is mostly the same. Not so.

With the Ten Tenors, "they are much younger. They are really cute. It's kind of like Ten Chippendale Tenors," Adrienne Moncrief Hemphill says with a laugh. She's seen the group on TV and is looking forward to a seat in the audience. "And they have those charming Australian accents, which everybody's in love with right now. But they do such a wide repertoire. In other words, their repertoire is everything."

"The thing is, it's not a high-brow evening," says Averyell Kessler, the presenter's marketing manager. "It's a collection of all different kinds of music. There is some opera, very little. There is pop. There is rock. ... I think there's a little Louis Armstrong thrown in, too.

"It's nostalgic music - it's some that you probably have a place in your heart for and are happy to hear again."

For Clark, the tour stop in Mississippi offers a chance to check out the mighty river featured in Huckleberry Finn, as well as winning new fans.

"We're getting standing ovations every night and we're having a blast as well," he says, "so we couldn't ask for anything better, really."

Source: Clarion Ledger