Full Orchestra - Level 3 - Digital Download

SKU: A0.1118521

Composed by Howard Blake. Arranged by Kevin Riley. 20th Century,Christmas,Film/TV. Score and parts. 53 pages. Kevin Riley #720042. Published by Kevin Riley (A0.1118521).

Walking in the Air is a song written by Howard Blake for the 1982 animated film The Snowman based on Raymond Briggs' 1978 children's book of the same name. The song forms the centrepiece of The Snowman, which has become a seasonal favourite on British and Finnish television. The story relates the fleeting adventures of a young boy and a snowman who has come to life. In the second part of the story, the boy and the snowman fly to the North Pole. Walking in the Air is the theme for the journey. They attend a party of snowmen, at which the boy seems to be the only human until they meet Father Christmas with his reindeer, and the boy is given a scarf with a snowman pattern. In the film, the song was performed by St Paul's Cathedral choirboy Peter Auty, and reissued in 1985 (on Stiff Records) and 1987. In 1985, an altered version was recorded for use in a TV advertising campaign for Toys R Us. As Auty's voice had then broken, Blake recommended the then-14-year-old Welsh chorister Aled Jones, whose recording reached number five in the UK Singles Chart, and who became a popular celebrity on the strength of his performance. The association of the song with Jones, combined with Auty not being credited on The Snowman, led to a common misbelief that Jones performed the song in the film. Walking in the Air has subsequently been performed by over forty artists, in a variety of styles. In a UK poll in 2012, the Aled Jones version was voted 13th on the ITV television special The Nation's Favourite Christmas Song.