The gospel choir that grabbed headlines by performing at the royal wedding between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle earlier this year have signed a major label record deal.

The Kingdom Choir won plaudits for their rendition of ‘Stand By Me’ at the event back on May 19th, in front of a television audience estimated to be around 1.9 billion – a far cry from their previous most-attended performance of 200 people.

Their performance later topped the American gospel chart, while the YouTube video was viewed over three million times. Now, two months after they stole the show at the royal wedding, they’ve now inked a record deal with Sony Music UK, and will go into the recording studio later in July to begin work on their debut album, which is set for release on November 2nd – with the Ben E King classic included, of course!

The Kingdom Choir has an enormous amount of pedigree and experience that stats like the above don’t really show. The 30-strong choir was formed in London in 1994 by award-winning conductor Karen Gibson, who had previously performed backing vocals for pop act The Beautiful South.

Six years later, they won BBC Radio 2's ‘Minstrels in the Gallery’, a competitive festival of religious music. In 2002, they were nominated in the category of Best UK Choir at the Oasis Awards.

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They have also performed alongside pop heavyweights including the likes of Sir Elton John, Luther Vandross and the Spice Girls.

In a statement announcing the great news on Wednesday (July 25th), Gibson told fans: “The Kingdom Choir are absolutely delighted with the journey of the past few months. It's been a rollercoaster, but we wouldn't have it any other way - first, the honour of being able to sing at the royal wedding, and then the thrill of being signed to Sony.”

Sony Music boss Nicola Tuer said she had “jumped at the chance” to sign the group. “The choir believe in love, music and power and we are excited to capture this on record for their fans across the globe.”

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