Aled Jones

Born on December 29, 1970, in Bangor, Wales, Aled Jones built his reputation chiefly around religious and inspirational material, although he also became a recognizable presence on British classical stations and later joined the cast of a popular ballroom-dancing reality series. He secured a recording deal while still in primary school and first attracted widespread attention with his performance of “Walking in the Air,” the theme from the 1982 animated feature The Snowman. When he turned sixteen his voice broke, temporarily halting the momentum he had enjoyed as a boy soprano. Following studies at the Royal Academy of Music, he returned to the stage in 1995 as a cast member of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and, in the early years of the new century, began presenting programs on Classic FM before moving to BBC Radio.

Holiday repertoire surfaced with The Christmas Album in 2004, and the following year he issued the studio set New Horizons. That same year he appeared on the BBC competition Strictly Come Dancing, broadening his public profile. A retrospective collection arrived in 2006 and included a virtual duet between the mature singer and his childhood recording of “Walking in the Air.” Reason to Believe followed in October 2007; the album featured collaborations, among them one with Welsh pop singer Cerys Matthews of Catatonia, and reached number 15 on the U.K. chart. Jones stepped back into theater in 2008, taking leading parts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and White Christmas, the first of which led to his West End debut six years later. He also authored two volumes of seasonal and sacred songs—Aled’s Forty Favourite Hymns in 2009 and Favourite Christmas Carols in 2010.

Further compilations appeared before the 2011 release Forever and the 2015 album The Heart of It All, the latter exploring his Welsh folk heritage. One Voice, issued in 2016, paired the adult Jones with an unreleased teenage performance discovered among his parents’ possessions. Later that year he completed the seasonal companion One Voice at Christmas, which united him with the late Sir Terry Wogan as well as his thirteen-year-old self. The trilogy concluded with Believe in 2017; on that record Jones again sang alongside his younger voice on classical pieces and, for the first time, recorded a duet with his son Lucas. A close partnership with baritone Russell Watson produced the joint albums In Harmony in 2018 and Back in Harmony in 2019, followed by the 2022 holiday collection Christmas with Aled and Russell.