Latest news with #a cappella
CNA
29-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CNA
CNA938 Rewind - All Killer no Filler - The Island Voices & their 6-track EP
CNA938 Rewind - All Killer no Filler - The Island Voices & their 6-track EP In 'Culture Club', Melanie Oliveiro speaks with some members of the award-winning vocal ensemble The Island Voices. They'll talk about their beginnings that led to a well-received debut at the Singapore National Day Parade (NDP) 2022. They'll also talk about their brand-new album 'Island Anthems', a six-track a cappella tribute to The Lion City's multicultural soundscape - reimagining renditions of National Day favourites. Discover more Singaporean music and musicians – like The Island Voices – at an initiative by the National Arts Council produced by independent music media company Bandwagon.
CTV News
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Seaside A Cappella: Nova Scotia group hopes to hit all the right notes during Irish competition
An a cappella chorus from Bridgewater, N.S., is set to hit the international stage in Ireland later this year where they hope their performance will be pitch perfect. Seaside A Cappella is part of Harmony Inc., an international organization with more than 2,000 members across North America. The Bridgewater chapter has 65 members in its all-female chorus. 'A lot of them are from different parts of either Canada or even the United States who sing with us virtually and be with us in person as much as they can,' says chorus director Judy Comeau. 'We started in 2017, and it was with women who like to sing and wanted to learn how to sing better and we called it Ordinary Voices with the goal of making extraordinary music and truly they have done that, and that is just not in my opinion, but also in the opinion of judges who have judged us.' The group competes locally every year in the Lunenburg County Music Festival, though they will travel a little further from home this fall. 'We're going to Ireland to compete in the Irish Association of Barbershop Singers international contest,' says Comeau. 'One of the things that we'll do while we're there is we're going to share a song with the international contest winners from last year. They're going to give us one of their Irish songs and we're giving them one of our favourite Nova Scotia songs.' The group will ask the Irish singers to perform 'Rise Again' by The Rankin Family. 'It's almost like a Nova Scotia anthem and we're so proud to be representing Nova Scotia. We are the first Canadian chorus in this organization to be competing with the other international competitors,' Comeau says. Among the group's members is 93-year-old Betty Rhodenizer. 'I've been singing practically all my life, but I joined the chorus when it began and they're just like sisters to me and I love every one of them,' she says. 'It's such a wonderful group of friends and I can't wait to get to Ireland with them,' says singer Michelle Tipert. Tipert adds the group wants to have the full Irish experience. 'So you know that would include some Guinness probably!' 'When they announce Seaside A Cappella from Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, Canada, it's going to be with so much pride in our hearts as we represent Bridgewater,' says Comeau. The Irish Association of Barbershop Singers Convention takes place in Killarney this October. For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
The Guardian
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Voces8 review – agile and poised vocal group celebrate 20 years, with a little help from their friends
Voces8 are 20 years old this year, but with so many speeches and so much goodwill floating around the sold-out Barbican, this birthday concert felt more like a wedding. It was certainly a family celebration on one level: the main MC was Barnaby Smith, who co-founded this agile vocal group with his brother Paul and is still its countertenor and artistic director, while Paul is CEO. And there were several old friends of the ensemble among the composers. The first half showcased the group in its usual format – eight singers, a cappella. It started with Buccinate in neomenia tuba by the Italian Renaissance composer Giovanni Croce, which, expertly sung, felt like an establishment of their credentials: crisp, poised and fast, the Italian skipping off the singers' tongues. The first half was otherwise full of 20th- or 21st-century music, rounded off with some tightly delivered arrangements of Cole Porter and Nat King Cole, but concentrating on more reflective, recent pieces, of which the most effective was probably Caroline Shaw's and the swallow, which plays with some gently evocative fluttering effects at the end. Strikingly, the music that was more than a century old – Elgar's Nimrod, arranged by John Cameron to fit the Lux Aeterna words from the Requiem mass, or Bogoroditse Devo from Rachmaninov's All-Night Vigil – sounded no more old-fashioned than most of the works by living composers. That says less about Elgar and Rachmaninov and more about fashions in choral music, with a safe, contemplative, slightly Disneyfied style – the kind of thing the choir sings in the film of Frozen – having become today's default. There was some more ambitious recent music in the second half, in which the core lineup was joined by, variously, 18 alumni members, the eight singers of Voces8's apprentice programme, violinist Jack Liebeck, and the BBC Singers, who remain an inspiration for every aspiring choral group. Kristina Arakelyan's An Ode to the World and, especially, Roxanna Panufnik's Love Endureth brought a welcome dose of punchier, more rhythmically driven music, and pieces by Jonathan Dove and Ken Burton also made an impact, but it was two old choral favourites, William Harris's Faire is the Heaven and Charles Wood's Hail Gladdening Light, performed by all 40-odd singers on stage that were the highlights. It's rare to hear a professional choir this large outside an opera house, and the sound they created was thrilling. On BBC Radio 3 on 18 June, then on BBC Sounds.
Forbes
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘Just Sing' Doc Shows The Heartfelt Real-Life World Of ‘Pitch Perfect'
When the filmmakers behind Just Sing first picked up their cameras, they weren't sure what story they were going to be telling. That's the risk — and to some, the thrill — of vérité documentary filmmaking. The only certain thing about the production was the subject: the SoCal VoCals, an elite college a cappella group from the University of Southern California, which is known for its powerhouse vocals, precision, showmanship, and an alumni roster that's packed with talented singers. But since the film's narrative is built around a competition, one which the filmmakers couldn't control, the outcome was impossible to script. 'It was part of the stress,' admits co-director Angelique Molina during a recent interview. 'If they had lost in the first round, we had to ask ourselves, 'where does the story go?'' That uncertainty hung over the production from the very beginning, and had to be a part of pitch meetings. Would the group advance through regionals? Would their stories resonate with everyone? Would there even be a satisfying emotional arc if none of these hardworking young singers got their moment in the spotlight? Thankfully, Just Sing does feature such an arc — one that isn't rooted solely in the outcome of the national championship, but rather in personal stories of the members of the SoCal VoCals. The audience is pulled in, and ultimately entertained, not just by the impeccable performances, but via an inside look at average, everyday people. That speaks to the openness of the singers, and the talent of the filmmakers. The documentary, which premieres at the Tribeca Festival on Friday (June 6), is ultimately joyful, as the camera follows the group of college students attempting to balance rehearsals, schoolwork, personal challenges, and the relentless drive to become not just good performers, but a winning team. Throughout that journey, the filmmakers capture quiet moments of vulnerability and celebration, including late-night practices, difficult conversations with parents who have given so much to see their children be able to sing, and the elation that comes with a life built around the arts – even if so many of them have no idea what's coming next and don't have a backup plan. Shot over the course of more than 100 days, Just Sing follows the SoCal VoCals from auditions and rehearsals through regionals, semifinals, and the finals of the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella — the same contest that inspired Pitch Perfect, though the tone here is far more grounded. This is real. In between stellar a cappella renditions of tracks by superstars both modern and from the past, the viewer really gets to know the students. Some are coming to terms with their own identities, while others recognize the hardships their families went through to give them this opportunity. 'A cappella brought them together,' says co-director Abraham Troen, 'but they each had their own lives, dreams, and challenges. That's what made the story feel bigger than the competition.' For Troen and Molina, the real breakthrough came not from any single performance, but in those subdued moments — during one-on-one interviews, especially long conversations over coffee, where the filmmakers chose which students they wanted to focus on, in addition to telling the story of the group as a whole. 'We didn't try to steer or manufacture emotion,' says Molina. 'They felt that, and they responded with honesty.' Connecting with the students came naturally, but filming was never easy. The directors embedded themselves into the troupe's daily routine, following the students from early morning classes through evening rehearsals that stretched well past midnight. 'That physical exhaustion of constantly being present — that was a challenge,' Molina says. 'But it was joyful, too. Worth it.' The filmmakers had other hurdles to clear as well, including the incredibly complicated and fraught world of music licensing. The SoCal Vocal's set list throughout the competitions featured everything from Lady Gaga to Beyoncé to Bob Dylan, and anyone who knows anything about placing songs into visual media knows such choices don't come cheap. 'We're really proud of the music we licensed,' says producer Sarah Thomson. 'We had an amazing music supervisor, and thankfully, nearly everyone said yes.' The team's careful planning and early outreach helped avoid problems in the future, like having to replace important music in post-production – something that simply wasn't an option here. The filmmakers needed to show the performances, and the students got to pick their own tunes. If just one act had declined, that may have been the end of this movie. The final cut of this documentary feels perfectly polished, but according to those who made the film, the process was a little messy. 'You can't script life,' Troen says. 'We were directing and filming at the same time, passing the camera between us, deciding who goes home with whom, who gets miked up out of 16 people. It was like a dance.' Even the edit evolved slowly. 'We had to ask, where does the story go? It wasn't about who was 'better,' it was about which stories could move the narrative forward.' 'In a cappella, sure, there are leads,' says Molina, 'but to sound like one voice, you have to be on the same page. That's what we tried to do as filmmakers, too.' This documentary, which is, at its heart, about something fairly simple that thousands of students take part in every year, feels both triumphant and normal – as can so many things in a life. Whether the SoCal VoCals win or not becomes almost secondary, though of course there's plenty of tension. 'We think the film will feel both bittersweet and triumphant, no matter what,' says Troen. 'Because at the end, they graduate. That's the real emotional payoff.'
