Singing priest from Britain’s Got Talent to headline festival of hymns in Hong Kong
- A video of Father Ray Kelly singing Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ went viral in 2014. He later appeared in Britain’s Got Talent and Dancing with the Stars
- He will sing at the opening concert of the four-day Hong Kong Hymnos Festival in November, pandemic travel restrictions permitting
Father Ray Kelly, the singing Irish priest from Britain’s Got Talent, is headlining a new festival of hymns in Hong Kong this winter.
The parish priest from County Meath, Ireland had his first brush with fame in 2014 when a video of him singing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah went viral online and was seen by around 80 million people. Since then, he has been a show-stealing contestant on Britain’s Got Talent and Dancing with the Stars.
Organisers of the inaugural Hong Kong Hymnos Festival say that Father Kelly is expected to appear in the opening concert on November 10, pandemic travel restrictions permitting.
Angela Hui Wing-man, the festival’s chairman, says she came up with the idea for the festival after attending a mass in Macau in 2018 which featured two choirs singing in English and Chinese. She was impressed by the dynamic arrangement and began to think of ways to take the music genre beyond churches and religious services.
Hymns are healing, she says, and Hong Kong has had two years of stress due to politics and the Covid-19 pandemic. “People may be suffering from the loss of jobs or experiencing conflicts with family or friends,” Hui says. She hopes that the music can bring some mental relief to the audience regardless of whether they are religious or not.
