Concert Review

February 9th, 2007

Tags: acapella, concert, review

I went to see the King’s Singers at the Byham last night. To everyone who also went (and whom I didn’t see there), I hope you had as amazing a time as I did. To everyone who didn’t… good lord, you really missed out.

Now many of you may not know that I used to be a member of an A Cappella group called The Originals. I also spent 4 years in the Repertory Chorus and Concert Choir, and took a year of voice lessons. At one point in time, operatic or jazz vocals were a serious career option for me, one that I never ended up pursuing largely because… well, if you think architecture doesn’t pay well, voice pays even less. Of course, with American Idol I could have maybe had a big break, but hindsight isn’t helping me much now, except to add some wishful thinking.

Regardless, I’m a huge a capella fan. My library was recently ripped apart so I don’t have a whole lot of samples for the genre anymore, but that’s certainly not going to stop me from getting in line when the King’s Singers come through town. Now the King’s Singers are, in so many words, the creme-de-la-creme of the A Cappella world. A six part group composed of two countertenors, two baritones, a tenor and a bass, they’ve been setting the standard for pretty much everything tight harmony for the past 40 years. While their music selections trend toward the esoteric and avant-garde, they nevertheless toss in enough contemporary covers to prove their versatility. One gets the sense that they throw in these crowd pleasers to have fun rather than to satisfy the audience, while the more serious pieces are there to challenge their own talents.

Last night’s concert, much like the other one I saw, began with a selection of religious and poetic pieces under the title “Landscape And Time”. ‘Music is defined by the Landscape and Time in which it is written’ (paraphrase), and their selections certainly bore that out. Pieces from the balkans, japan, britain, and africa managed to portray the lives of the persons and cultures they represented. Unfortunately I am no skilled music critic, so I can’t go into details on which of the songs was technically or skillfully superior to others, but I must admit that I really enjoyed the Sea Runes song cycle and Remembered Love, a Japanese poem set to song describing the bleak landscape of lost love.

These were followed by a second half of “Something Completely Different”: An… art piece?… about how the wrist watch was the real reason Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden, followed by one well executed cover after another (I particularly liked their version of Creole Love Call by Duke Ellington. Duke Ellington! Seriously…). They closed the concert with their rendition of the Overture to the Barber of Seville by Rossellini, in which they managed to very successfully execute a full orchestra using only six voices. The encore was an italian rendition of Old MacDonald Had A Farm (“Feel free to sing along”), proving once again that anything sounds sophisticated if sung by skilled performers in a foreign language (Zany Hijinks nonwithstanding).

What struck me most about the concert is that it was obvious the guys were having fun. This isn’t just a job for them, they really enjoy what they do. And I, for those two hours, had a lot of fun listening to them.

The only catch? Now I feel regret for leaving my vocal career behind me. Oh well, at least there’s always the shower.