At only 25 years old, tenor Mark Vincent has recently released his ninth album, one he considers his fans’ most long awaited one. A Christmas recording inspired by Bing Crosby and Michael Bublé’s popular holiday releases, he’d been putting off the project for a while lest he should fall short of their examples.

Mark Vincent. Photo supplied

“My fans had asked me for so long, ‘Mark, when are you going to release a Christmas record?’ And I’d always say, next year, next year, next year because I wanted to wait until the right time to release a Christmas album because lots of artists sing Christmas songs. But only a few great artists like Michael Bublé and Bing Crosby make songs like White Christmas or Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas their own and I wanted to make sure that I did that as well,” explains Vincent.

Another reason for the wait was the time Vincent needed to figure out the most appropriate vocal style for Christmas standards so often crooned. “I said to myself, but I’m not a crooner, how am I going to approach this? I didn’t want to take the gimmick out...