Aled Jones on life and music after Walking in the Air<\/a><\/p>\nThe Welsh singer and entertainer shares a playlist of songs from 1987, his pick for the best year ever for music.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The last tour I did, which was a month-long tour of the regions, was probably the best time I’ve ever had in Australia.<\/p>\n
It was a real joy to see places that I wouldn’t normally get to see.<\/p>\n
[One time], my team and I were leaving a cathedral somewhere, travelling in a van.<\/p>\n
And as we left, the bishop blessed us so that we didn’t kill any kangaroos.<\/p>\n
What was it like encountering your younger self?<\/p>\n
It was weird, but it was also wonderful.<\/p>\n
In the studio, we [created a distinction between] Little Aled and Big Aled.<\/p>\n
When I listen to Little Aled sing, I realise how free, easy, and joyous it was.<\/p>\n
So, I try to have a little bit of that in my adult performance as well, because we can be so critical as adults.<\/p>\n
[Little Aled reminds me that] actually it’s the heart in the piece that counts, not whether you’re hitting the note bang in the middle.<\/p>\n
How did you come to record a cover of Walking in the Air?<\/p>\n
I went into a session in London to record an advert for Toys R Us who were launching their first store in the UK.<\/p>\n
They asked me to record 30 seconds of this Christmas song, Walking in the Air, that’s linked to a magical cartoon called The Snowman.<\/p>\n
Coming from Wales, we didn’t get the cartoon on our television screens there, so I had no idea.<\/p>\n
I had already recorded 16 albums at this point, and I was busy, so I only learnt the first 30 seconds of the song.<\/p>\n
While I was recording in the studio, the producer said, “well, let’s record the whole song.”<\/p>\n
Cue little Aled in the corner going: “I don’t know it”.<\/p>\n
[The producer] basically taught me the song by singing line by line, and I’d repeat it.<\/p>\n
And that’s how the song was recorded, believe it or not.<\/p>\n
Now, four generations have sung it. It’s a real earworm.<\/p>\n
What was it like to work with Leonard Bernstein?<\/p>\n
It was like a dream come true.<\/p>\n
[The first time I met Bernstein], he put me in a headlock and said: “Kid, I’ve been wanting to work with you for years”.<\/p>\n
Then he took me in a masterclass for about an hour and a half in front of the London Symphony Chorus, who were about 100 strong and explained to everyone: “This is my last chance to get the [Chichester Psalms] sounding like it does in my head, and Aled’s going to give me that.”<\/p>\n
It was just amazing.<\/p>\n
How has classical music for young people changed over time?<\/p>\n
I think what’s changed is that people now just appreciate good music.<\/p>\n
When I was a child, you either loved classical music, or you loved popular music.<\/p>\n
I remember going to a record store where the first two floors were popular music, and then if you wanted to go to the classical floor, you’d go up to the third floor.<\/p>\n
The records were behind glass, and it was so sterile and so uninviting.<\/p>\n
Nowadays, when I look at my kids, they’ve got everything on their [playlists] from Eminem to Rachmaninov to folk music to country music.<\/p>\n
And I think that’s wonderful, because as a kid growing up, I listened to everything, I love mixing genres.<\/p>\n
This interview has been edited for clarity.<\/p>\n
Aled Jones is touring Australia in April and May 2026, including Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane and regional cities.<\/p>\n
Get the latest classical music stories direct to your inbox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aled Jones became famous at just 15 years old, after his recording of Howard Blake’s Walking in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[199174,199175,430,159196,156,111,139,69,199176],"class_list":{"0":"post-383703","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-aled-jones","9":"tag-boy-soprano","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-classicreads","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nz","16":"tag-walking-in-the-air"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}