Celebrating Christmas: Anais and Khaim Spencer talk the Royal Albert Hall carol concert

Anais and Khaim Spencer (New Addington) talk to Lyn Woods about the Army’s carol concert at the Royal Albert Hall.

Tell us a bit about yourselves. How did you discover your musical talents?

Music has always been a big part of our lives, whether playing it, singing in the car or through church. As siblings, we’ve both played instruments and sung from a young age, and it feels like that’s all we’ve ever known – our whole family is musical in some way or other. 

We both had lessons throughout our school years. Anais studied singing and piano and Khaim studied piano, drums and guitar. Our keen interest followed us right the way to university at Chichester. 

Anais has a BMus (Hons) in classical vocal performance and Khaim has a BA (Hons) in audio production and music technologies.

What do you do as performers?

Anais fronts a function band that performs at a variety of events all over the country. She also regularly leads worship for The Salvation Army and the wider Church. Khaim is involved in coordinating sung worship for his corps, as well as leading and playing at Army events and camps.

Professionally, Khaim is building a portfolio of composition work, particularly in music for the moving image. We both write and record together too.

What do your friends say about you, your music and your faith?

For the most part, our friends are musicians too and we’ve shared our musical journey with many of them. Those who aren’t musicians have always just been really encouraging to us. 

The opportunity to develop as musicians – which we’ve had through our involvement in church – has enabled us to grow in our faith alongside many of our likeminded friends.

What is your favourite part of Christmas?

We’ve really loved creating traditions with our family. For 10 years, part of our tradition involved participating in our corps pantomime, which was offered as a gift to the community.

The whole corps got involved in some way or another, and it was really special. Another family tradition we’ve grown to value is attending the Service of Lessons and Carols at Westminster Abbey. It always feels like the start of Christmas for us.

How do you share the reason for the season on your front line?

As we’ve graduated from university and started finding our way in the world of music, our lives have changed significantly over the past year or two. 

For both of us, it’s important to live with integrity and to be known as people who reflect – as best we can – Christlike values in the way that we conduct our lives.

How are you feeling ahead of the concert?

This is the first time we’ve been part of this event – although we’ve both attended as audience members in the past. We were very honoured to be asked to participate. 

The Royal Albert Hall has always been a very special venue for us. We’ve attended several concerts there and it holds many fond memories. We’re particularly excited to experience performing on this iconic stage. 

It remains to be seen how nervous we might be on the night, but we’re sure that there will be more than a few prayers offered!

Can you tell us anything about what you’ll be performing?

We’d love to tell you, but it’s a closely guarded secret to make it a nice surprise for our family and friends on the night!