Kenya gets its own little Abbey Road

The classical sound engineer and producer Tony Faulkner had gone a bit quiet and I wondered where he’d got to. Kenya, it seems. Scouting for the best location for one of its fabulous choirs. Here’s his report and pics, exclusive to Slipped Disc.

I am a very lucky man who has recorded in more than twenty countries around the
world and the weekend before last was a new experience. Look at the picture above
and you could imagine you were in an English village in Buckinghamshire or Kent,
but you would be wrong.

This is All Saints’ Limuru in Kenya, about 20 miles outside Nairobi in an area dominated by tea and coffee plantations.

Never having been south of the Canary Islands I had expected blistering equatorial heat, dusty landscapes and camels but I could not have been more wrong. I had been invited to Kenya by the Kijani Trust to meet the Nairobi Chamber Chorus, its Music Director Ken Wakia and to drive around Kenya for three days looking at possible recording venues.

The choir was formed in 2005 and earlier this year they were invited to the UK to perform for H.M. Queen Elizabeth at her Jubilee concert in Windsor. We plan to record in October of this year and the programme will include
Eric Whitacre’s “Lux Aurumque” and Gary Barlow’s + Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s
“Sing” from the Queen’s Jubilee. The sound and quality of the choir is very fine and individual in style.

The inside of the church is equally very English in style. In the foreground is choir director Ken Wakia.

This will be a great project I am really looking forward to. Below are a couple of
other snaps from the locality. The other church is St. Philip’s where the Queen heard the news of her father’s passing. The other photos speak for themselves – a different zebra crossing from Abbey Road!