Concert: Naturally 7 @ Singapore Mosaic Music Festival

Sunday, 22 Mar 2009, 7.30pm.

From the Mosaic Music Festival website:

"To call Naturally Seven an impressive live performance would be a huge understatement... the performance could have brought down a stadium." - The Lonely Note

From bellowing brass to thumping bass, scratching vinyl to ripping drum solo, every sound that you hear from Naturally 7 emerges from their mouths - naturally. For the hugely-talented US-based, seven-member ensemble does not play musical instruments but delivers its full-bodied music with the most natural instrument of all - the human voice.

Standing out from the plethora of a cappella gospel and R&B groups in the American music scene today, Naturally 7 kicks the late 90s' urban sound up many notches with what it calls "vocal play".

Specifically, impressive instrument mimicry and vocal acrobatics in flawless harmonies, the group's vocal play sees its members swapping leads and beats while replicating the sounds of diverse instruments to create full rhythm tracks and the sound of a full band in an artful blend of various genres of music - gospel, R&B, jazz, funk, hip-hop, rap, soul and beatboxing.

The impact of Naturally 7's music, best experienced live, has inspired standing ovations and rave reviews through the group's five-album career and its tours throughout Europe and the USA. Today, Naturally 7 is stronger than ever, continually evolving to include diverse "instruments" and sounds while staying true to its love for music, its powerful, "sticks and stones can't break these tones" (Wall of Sound) delivery, and its uplifting messages of hope and empathy.

Naturally 7 is Garfield Buckley, Rod Eldridge, Warren Thomas, Jamal Reed, Roger "N'glish" Thomas, Dwight Stewart, and Armand "Hops" Hutton.

Tickets are still on sale, with limited concessions available for students and NSFs. If you need to be convinced that this gig is worth going to, visit Youtube for more of their videos.

Listening Recommendations: Ein deutsches Requiem

My maiden post on Sing 4 Harmony (yay). I'd like to clarify though, that I am no 'musicologist' as Yeshamiel said in an earlier post haha.

Anyway, let's skip the burger bun and get to the juicy meat.

Most young Singaporean choristers are familiar with contemporary choral works of Asian nature, and do know a few classcial works - and probably have sung them before - such as Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus. And we are all too familiar with the refrains of Handel's Hallejujah chorus and Beethoven's Ode to Joy.

And then there are other composers who we have heard of before but never knew much about their musical output. Honestly, before listening to Brahms' choral works i thought Brahms composed mainly for piano (having played one of his Hungarian Dances and Rhapsody in G minor) and other chamber works - small scale compositions for a few instruments. In fact, he composed quite a large proportion of choral works and songs (lieder) as well.

Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem, or A German Requiem, was composed after his mother's death, which could have inspired the composition. The lyrics to the symphonic choral work were taken from the German Luther Bible - one would find it intriguing that it is not set to traditional Latin verses instead. The Requiem omits Christian references, as Brahms intended the Requiem to be for just about anybody.

Two other facts about A German Requiem: it was Brahms' first large-scale success as a composer and it affirmed his position as an important German musician. More recently, the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Kurt Masur, performed it for a September 11th memorial concert days after the attack and was broadcasted live on American televsion.

Personally, I do enjoy listening to Brahms' a cappella choral works. Beautiful yet simple melodies, lush harmonies, with instances of polyphony, which I feel even choristers who are less familiar with classical works can listen to. For example, Op. 62 No. 2 Von Alten Liebeslieder.

Concert - Spectrum: Birth and Death by SYC Ensemble Singers

Hey guys,

SYC will be holding a concert on 8 Mar 09 (Sun) at 7.30 pm. The location's Esplanade Recital Studio, and the projected duration of the concert's 70 minutes (no intermission).

The concert's titled after Birth and Death - Five Songs for Thich Nhat Hanh, commissioned by the choir for its 40th anniversary in 2004. More information about this set of work may be found here.

In addition, they'll also be performing works by Stephen Leek, Corrado Margutti and Vytautas Miškinis. Miškinis' Time is Endless was premiered by the choir in Indonesia in June 2008, while Margutti's D'amore e d'ombre and Leek's Burrinjuck will receive first performances in Tokyo in January 2009.

Ticket sales have already started and is going for 24 dollars per ticket. For more info, do click here to get redirected to the SISTIC website.

The Group

Dear all,

It's a thrill for the people involved in this project to be well... involved! We love vocal music and all its subsidiaries, and would be bringing to you all that is going on in our dear own Singapore.

I guess we should introduce ourselves, so I'll just briefly go through the whole lot:

1. Cheej, who had the honour of the first post, is our webmaster and a cappella music extraordinaire
2. Cliff, our resident 'musicologist' (you'll hear from him soon)
3. Han Rui, our newest member and probably most enthusiastic of the lot i think haha
4. Myself, Yeshamiel, the evil villain who will probably be cutthroat truthful, but do solemnly promise not to be subjective in my devastating reviews. =P

Anyway, now that that is over, we at Sing 4 Harmony, would like to invite everyone to contribute their thoughts esp in the infant stages of this project. We're also looking at involving guest contributors who will help us do some reviews as and when they are able to. I guess the more the merrier eh?

We thank you all, in advance, for your help and we really hope this will turn out to be a successful endeavour! :)

Salutations

Welcome to Sing 4 Harmony, a website dedicated to bringing you the latest news in Singapore's choral and a cappella scenes. We'll be posting with regards to:

• Upcoming concerts
• Upcoming audition periods
• Availability of relevant courses and workshops
• Reviews of performances
• Competition results

We're still building an effective layout, so for most intents and purposes the site is still under construction.

However, if you do chance upon this little niche in the internet, do spread the word to like-minded friends. Over time, we hope that a community will take root, with this blog of ours becoming the place to go to for the latest updates in the scene.