Decca launch search for record-breaking bass singer
Composer Paul Mealor and prestigious record label Decca are attempting to explore whole new depths of the human voice with the launch of a world-wide search for a record-breaking bass singer.
The 'Bass Hunter' talent search hopes to find a singer to record Paul Mealor's new choral work De Profundis (‘Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord’), which features a low E, over two octaves below middle C. It is thought that the note has never been sung before.
The note is six notes below the lowest note ever written for a choral piece (a B flat in Rachmaninov’s ‘Vespers’) and a whole tone lower than the Guinness World Record-holder - a sung ‘F sharp’.
Paul Mealor said of the piece “My setting of De Profundis (‘Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord’) calls for a rich and powerful voice; a voice that can not only touch the heart with its sincerity and truth, but also make every fabric of the human body resonate as it plunges into the very lowest parts of the vocal spectrum.”
Singers can send demo tapes, or upload their voices to a new website: www.howlowwillyougo.com. The recording of the piece is expected to take place in the Spring.
De Profundis (Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord) will be Mealor's first choral work since his piece for the Royal Wedding last year, and sees him working once again with producer Anna Barry, with whom he will judge the talent search.
