Fraser walters biography canadian tenors youtube

Tenor Fraser Walters struck right note on field

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VANCOUVER — Before he was a great tenor, Fraser Walters was a great athlete.

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Actually, before either, he was a great soprano, singing as a boy in operas and musical theatre productions like Brigadoon at the Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park.

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He was so adept at both sports and music that Walters wrote in his high school yearbook – St. George’s, class of 1998 – that his goal was the Olympics or the Grammys. Maybe he could do both.

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“To all the music guys, I was the jock,” Fraser smiles, sitting in a pub across the river from Richmond, where he grew up. “And to all the jocks, I was the music guy. I was always in this in-between world of people’s expectations. I took a lot of slack from the jocks. But they’re the ones who write now: ‘Hey, buddy, just saw you on TV.’ ”

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Walters never really had the chance to make the Olympics because at age 20, after a soccer game with the University of B.C. Thunderbirds, he darted up the stairs at home and felt his heart pounding irregularly.

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His mom Lynn, a nurse, rushed him to hospital and he was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, a form of arrhythmia. His career as an elite athlete was over.

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“It was crushing,” Walters, now 32, say

  • It is truly a bittersweet

    • The Tenors get their miracle

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    Clifton Murray and Victor Micallef needed a miracle.

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    They found two when Alberto Urso and Mark Masri joined The Tenors.

    Murray was more than a little concerned when long-time compatriot Fraser Walters left the Canadian operatic/pop group earlier this year to focus on raising his family.

    “It was immediately terrifying for me to imagine the possibilities of the group not carrying on,” he told The Sault Star during a recent telephone interview from Toronto.

    Murray and Walters had been part of the vocal outfit for more than a decade. Their successes included performing at the Emmys, The Oprah Winfrey Show and the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010.

    Masri was a known talent. He’d been filling in for about a decade when full-time members of The Tenors, formerly Canadian Tenors, couldn’t make a show. With his son recently starting his post-secondary education, Masri was ready to step up his commitment to the group that’s released six albums between 2005 and 2017.

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    Graham Parker, former president of Decca Records, pointed The Tenors to Urso, a promising Italian singer who won a television talent show in his home country.

    “The magic was immediate,” said Murray of Urso. The group’s new member also had a song, Miracle, he co-wrote and had not been released. The Tenors cut Urso’s track and released a Sicily-shot video on YouTube last Friday that’s already garnered 35,000 views.

    “The words spoke to us as if it was written for the moment we were in,” said Murray. The British Columbia native shares various lyrics including “There’s a time to let go, and let something brand new grow. Don’t give up yet. Hold on to

  • Fraser Walters and wife

    • INTERVIEW: FRASER WALTERS of The Tenors – November 2015

    Todd 'ToddStar' Jolicoeur | 13 November 2015

    I love music… especially great music.  The latest disc from The Tenors,Under One Sky, is great music.  I have been so tempted time and time again to go back and change my original rating on my review, as I find myself going back to the disc time and time again.  The Tenors are in the midst of a North American tour that stretches into early 2016, sharing the music on that disc with their fans (and I cannot wait to see the final 2015 show at The Colosseum at Caesar’s Windsor).  Taking a few minutes out from his vigorous routine, Fraser Walters gave us a call to discuss the tour, the disc, and so much more…

    Toddstar: First off thank you so much for taking time out. It’s a pleasure and an honor for me.

    Fraser: Oh, wow. Thanks for making yourself available to help share our story.

    Toddstar: And a hell of a story it is. The best part of the story is you guys are in the middle of a tour, out promoting a great album,Under One Sky. You guys are about a month or so into the tour. How is the tour going so far? How is it being received?

    Fraser: We’ve been blown away from the response. We’re sort of floating on a cloud right now and excited for the new fans that we’re meeting along the way. We certainly have our devoted following that continue to lift us up. If it wasn’t for those fans we wouldn’t be able to do what we do. Everything is a result of the incredible support that we receive along the way, and there’s quite a traveling group that have followed us down the west coast and now a different group up the east coast. We’re just thrilled to share new music with an audience that has been with us for years. It’s been five years maybe since we were on the Oprah Winfrey show, and that really opened us up to a new mainstream audience in the US, and they’ve not only stu

    The Tenors

    Canadian operatic pop vocal group

    The Tenors (formerly known as The Canadian Tenors) are a vocal group consisting of Victor Micallef, Clifton Murray, Alberto Urso, and Mark Masri. They perform operatic pop music that is a mixture of classical and pop, featuring songs such as "The Prayer", Panis angelicus, and Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.

    Originating from Canada, Micallef and Masri from Toronto, Urso from Sicily, and Murray from Port McNeill, the Tenors have performed on more than 60 international television programs. They appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show with Celine Dion in 2010, at the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, at the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards in 2011, and on ITV's Diamond Jubilee Show at Windsor Castle for QueenElizabeth II in 2012. They also appeared on the 2009 and 2016Grey Cup broadcasts, on CBC Television's Holiday Festival of Ice, and at the 85th Annual Rockefeller Tree Lighting which aired on NBC on November 29, 2017.

    The venues they have performed in include Carnegie Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, the Israeli Opera House in Tel Aviv, and the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.

    They have shared the stage with Sarah McLachlan,Neil Young,Paul Anka,Justin Bieber,Charice,Paul McCartney,Brian McKnight, David Foster,Natalie Cole, and Jackie Evancho.

    Universal Music Group released their platinum-selling self-titled debut album and double-platinum holiday album, The Perfect Gift, in November 2009. The Tenors filmed a PBS special at the Smith Center for the Performing Arts that began airing in 2012.

    The Canadian Tenors were renamed The Tenors in November 2012 in advance of their third album, Lead with Your Heart. Also in 2012, The Tenors s