Musician Tom Walker has opened up about practicing
and performing with Kate Middleton for her Christmas carol concert at
Westminster Abbey. Tom, who sang his poignant hit For Those Who Can’t
Be Here while Kate accompanied him on the piano, admitted the royal
was understandable “quite nervous” in the first rehearsal.
Tom said: “I think the first rehearsal we did she was quite nervous because
she hadn’t played with another musician in a very long time. She’s got a piano
at home but the one that we’d rented in for the day was going to be the same
one we were using for the actual service. It was completely different to hers,
so she was trying to get the feel for that.”
The Scottish singer-songwriter gave a
personal insight into what the Duchess is really like, saying: “She’s just lovely, really chilled out, very
nice, seems really approachable and just really lovely. I was very
nervous for the first five to ten minutes but I was all good after that.”
The
pair went through the song around nine times before recording the final
performance, but Kate, 39, appeared to do even more practice at home in between
their sessions.
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| Royal Carols-Together at Christmas will air on Christmas Eve |
Tom
said: “When she turned up for the actual performance, you could really
tell she’d gone to town practicing because I was shocked at how much better she
was. She really invested a lot of time and energy into getting it right and
making sure that it was good, so I was really impressed – a great musician.”
Tom
went on to sing the Duchess’ praises, adding: “I think we were both really
nervous that it wasn’t going to go quite to plan and one of us would let down
the other person or whatever, but she was absolutely fabulous – she smashed it.
What a talented, kind, warm-hearted, lovely person. She’s very chilled, very nice and she was so
kind to everybody who was there – personally introduced herself to the whole
band. It was just lovely. A big moment for me in my career.”
The song was broadcast on ITV as part of
Royal Carols: Together at Christmas, which was masterminded by Kate. The
Duchess came up with the idea of performing the song together after meeting Tom
at a Forward Trust event, also attended by Ant and Dec, in October. She was
impressed by his song Leave a Light On, about the struggles of
people with addiction.
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| Kate decorates the tree at Westminster Abbey |
As
Kate revealed in her introduction to the carol service: “Music was so
important to me during the pandemic as I think it was to so many people
too.”
A royal source added: “Music was very important to her during the
lockdowns and playing the piano brought great comfort to her. She played a lot
during the lockdown. She also recognizes the powerful way in which music
brings people together – especially during difficult times. For these reasons,
she was keen to be part of Tom’s performance in this way.”
