Alastair Hume

"You are the worst alto we have ever had in this Choir." Thus spake David, now Sir David, Willcocks to a rather twitchy alto in the early sixties amid the Gothic splendour of King's College Chapel. It is a remark he denies ever making, but, although a Brit's upper lip remains pretty stiff at such moments that might have felled a lesser man and blighted a promising career - well, a career anyway. It is the sort of remark a chap might make that cuts a chap to the quick without a chap relising it, if you follow my meaning.

It goes without saying that the twitchy alto was I, and David had caught me at a slightly unfortunate time in my life when I couldn't tell the difference between a fourth and a hole in the ground. My eyes were just beginning to be opened to the glories of sacred music of the Renaissance, but at that point they were still only a couple of slits. I had not been through the experience of being a boy chorister in a cathedral choir, and so was unfamiliar with virtually the entire concept and reality of the English choral tradition, to the extent that I remember vividly thinking (what sacrilege! what heresy!) that W. Byrd Esq. was possibly the most boring composer whose music had gone wrong. All this looks like a less than ideal preparation for a 23-year stint in the King's Singers, but having emerged from Cambridge with a law degree, there was a clearly audible sigh of relief breathed by the legal profession when I returned my attentions towards music.

In fact I think I have the best of both worlds, in that on April 1, 1991 I married a really lovely girl called Diane who is a lawyer, as well as being a keen and good amateur singer...(For our wedding) I wore the kilt, of the Hume tartan, naturally."

Since Al's retirement from the Singers, he has opened the City of London Festival in 1995, and he and Diane now have a son, Alexander, who was born at the end of that summer.