专辑简介

by Sharon Mawer

Garðar Thór Cortes, or to give him his more English friendly name of simply Cortes was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, whose father was a towering legend at home, having founded The Icelandic Opera, The Reykjavík School of Singing and the eykjavík Symphony Orchestra. Young Garðar had been a child actor and after taking singing lessons, began a career in musical theatre, culminating in successfully auditioning for the part of Raoul in London's West End production of Phantom Of The Opera. Moving on to an opera course at the Royal Academy of Music, he met Katherine Jenkins who was also studying at that time and then began a tour of European opera houses, playing leading tenor roles in operas by Verdi, Rossini, Donizetti and Richard Strauss. He was persuaded by Einar Bárðarson to record a classical crossover album and thus was born the idea for the project which he ultimately called Cortes. So what tracks do you choose when you agree to a pop/classical hybrid, well some old favourites must be included, Nessun Dorma, Granada, Caruso all of which drew inevitable comparisons with Andrea Bocelli and a familiar pop song sung as if it had always been an operatic aria which in Cortes case, he chose Aha's Hunting High And Low and if possibly stick an ethnic song on the album, Cortes closed with the track Skýið, an Icelandic acoustic melody. There were a couple of guest performances on Cortes by female singers, Heather Small makes a minor appearance on the track Luna but her contribution is rather dwarfed by both the arrangement and Cortes own voice, but a more equal duet was with his old friend and colleague Katherine Jenkins on the track Where The Lost Ones Go. Of course it helped that he had such boyish good looks and a voice that seemed as if it couldn't possible come from his vocal chords.