The Swingles

Done in a couple of different versions.

So the Swingle singers, Ward Swingle was an American who came to Paris and organized this group that did a cappella singing.

Well, actually, it was accompanied by bass and drums.

And it was always done to a syncopated jazz beat.

And it was done so beautifully that it really, I think, worked.

I mean, in my case, it made me appreciate how complex but also how beautiful Bach's music was.

Well, let's give our audience the opportunity to listen first to the great Glenn Gould playing the Sinfonia from the Partita No. 2 in C minor, and then we'll follow it with the Swingle Singers.

PIANO PLAYS piano plays softly Thank you.

She has worked with major opera companies and festivals, and has also appeared in concert, oratorio, recital, radio and television performances.

Her career has included performances with Welsh National Opera and Opera North, as well as a period touring internationally with the world-renowned Swingle Singers.

Accompanying the concert was Brian Cotterill, an experienced organist, pianist, musical director, teacher and composer.

Brian has held a number of prominent church and school music positions and has performed throughout the UK and internationally.

Um, she said he was very uninterested in the accuracy of it.

They were working on the Cries of London, which is a, originally a six-part piece written for the King's Singers, and then Berio didn't like the way they did it, so he added two soprano parts and an extra movement and gave it to the Swingles.

And he, he just wanted wildly over-the-top sort of stuff.

Um, the trouble is actually Berio's music is too well-written just to, just to be messy.

Like there isn't a scene here of like contemporary acapella in the way that we do in the way that you might hear like groups like...

Pentatonix or the Swingles or like, you know.

The Swingles? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've never heard of them.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

really big in the acapella community.

They're in the UK.

Okay, the Swingles.

music.

Like I can say like for this last, for the show I just did, I listened kind of on a loop to the Swingle Singers from the 60s.

They're sort of covers of Bach where they just did acapella of Bach.

I don't know

it it was so charming that yeah people so it was fun to listen to that the tone of it is sort of the tone i wanted the show to be which is just sort of like this sort of bouncy um uh bright sort of blown out portrayal of of this sort of family this time period um and so yeah so i listened to that music pretty obsessively while i was working on that that's

so interesting did you say they're called the swingle sisters

The Swingle Singers.

Swingle Singers.

I mean, you, you, you can explore a great deal more doing a cappella because you're so exposed, so vulnerable within a group.

And I remember, I think the first group I ever heard were The Swingles, and I remember hearing-

Mm

...

Yeah

... different k- types of color.

The Swingles have always been at the forefront of, of pushing the boundaries, I think.

Um, and, uh, I mean, they, they started...