Christmas big for Irish Tenors
By Virginia Rohan The Record (Bergen County, N.J.)


The holiday season may begin just as early in America as it does in Ireland, but as Anthony Kearns sees it, Christmas has more staying power across the pond.

"I think there's a bigger deal over Christmas in Ireland," says Kearns, one-third of the famed trio known as the Irish Tenors. "It goes on for weeks. It starts in November, and there are decorations, songs, the kids are out looking for Santa Claus. There are winter wonderland shows ... and people love celebrating right into January. They keep it going through Little Christmas on the sixth of January ... And it's not back to work the day after. People take two weeks on vacation. They're very fond of Christmas here."

Kearns and his fellow Irish Tenors -- Ronan Tynan and Finbar Wright -- are doing their best to spread some of that true Irish cheer to their American cousins. They currently are on their annual Christmas Spectacular tour. "It's a long tour for us, but it's a fun, festive tour, and people are really going to enjoy it," Kearns says.

The Irish Tenors have achieved amazing success in the five years since they came together. Their first U.S. tour in March 1999 drew 15,000 fans to Madison Square Garden, and two years later, they returned for sold-out performances at Carnegie Hall and Radio City Music Hall. Their fame widened with the PBS broadcast of their Ellis Island concert in March 2001, a special so popular that PBS often replays it.

Asked about the composition of the typical American audience, Kearns says, "Well, I suppose the majority would be of Irish extraction, but we find we're now getting a mixed group of people."

The path that Kearns, 32, took to success was as colorful and surprising as a winding Irish road.

Growing up in Kiltealy, County Wexford, he played the trombone in school and, like many Irish children, the accordion at home. Surprisingly, given the love he now has for opera and classical music, Kearns did not listen to Irish tenors like John McCormack as a youth, but to balladeers and folk groups, whom he happily emulated.

"I've been singing, and involved in competitions from a very early age, mainly traditional Irish music," he says.

His big break came in 1993, when Kearns won a competition called "Ireland's Search for a Tenor," by singing The Impossible Dream, and, as an encore, Danny Boy.

"It wasn't until 1993, with winning that competition, that I was introduced to the more serious classical music," says Kearns, who wound up taking singing lessons from Veronica Dunne, considered Ireland's top singing teacher

Another search -- in 1998, for three tenors to appear in an American television special -- led Kearns to become part of the Irish Tenors. Originally, he was paired with Tynan, whom he'd met in Dublin four years earlier, and John McDermott, who recorded two albums as one of the Irish Tenors. McDermott left the trio in 2000, when his mother died on the eve of their Belfast concert, and was replaced by Wright, whom Kearns had known by reputation.

"'Tis a small world in Ireland in the music business," Kearns says, explaining that all three current members of the group are considered lyric tenors but have vocal timbres that are distinctively different. "We came together very naturally. Individually, we do our own thing. We have different voices. I think we complement each other. We bring our fair share of songs to the table, and when we got together, we were able to figure out who sings what lines where, without eruptions and rows breaking out."

Were the Irish Tenors perchance inspired by ultra-successful Italians known as the Three Tenors?

It didn't do any harm, that's for sure," says Kearns, who met Luciano Pavarotti once, when he went to see Tosca at the Met. "PBS saw the opportunity, with 40 million people of Irish extraction [in America]."

Kearns is happy about that.

"We all get on great together. We try to give the best program that we possibly can. It's honest, and when we hit the stage, we have fun," he says. "The day it's not fun is the day we say goodbye, but we haven't reached that day."