Swingle all the way for Winnipeg Singers

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This article was published 17/12/2016 (3575 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In this merry season of fa-la-las and deck the halls, it’s always refreshing to hear creative new twists on Yuletide classics.

The Winnipeg Singers swings hard with its next concert Swingle Bells: Take Two, showcasing late American vocalist and jazz musician Ward Swingle’s Swingle Bells. The Singers last performed the nine mini-sets of jazz-infused carols composed in 1978 10 years ago, popularized by Swingle’s a cappella vocal ensemble, the aptly titled Swingle Singers. The concert, Sunday at 3 p.m. at Westminster United Church, also features Winnipeg jazz king/pianist Ron Paley with his trio in tow — including drummer Rob Siwik and bassist Julian Bradford — that also accompanied the choir for “Take One” in 2006.

“These arrangements are beautifully written with all these great jazz harmonies. They are brilliantly composed, where sparkling carols are balanced with ones that are more slow and intimate,” says Russian-born maestro Yuri Klaz, now in his 14th year at the Winnipeg Singers helm. The 23 individual pieces are sung in a multitude of languages, including French, German, Czech, Dutch and Spanish. “They also really take you on a journey around the world.”

Founded in Paris by Swingle as an eight-member vocal ensemble in 1962, the London-based Grammy-award-winning Swingle Singers, in their current incarnation, still tour and record and are known for their ebullient crossover arrangements ranging from J.S. Bach to Bjork. The snazzy 29-minute Swingle Bells features such familiar holiday chestnuts as Jingle Bells, The First Noel and Go Tell It on the Mountain.

But audiences can also expect the unexpected, including French carols El Noi de la Mare and Il es ne le divin Enfant, as well as Hanej, nynej, Ježisku sung in Czech. Klaz admits that navigating this global village of languages can be a real tongue-twister.

“It’s very difficult to do this, but the singers are absolutely enjoying it,” he says of their rehearsal process. Swingle Bells is essentially new to the group — only three of the current choristers performed it in 2006.

The 44-year-old choir should know a thing or two about global villages. During its successful summer European tour that included stops in Germany, Austria and Italy, the group garnered the prestigious Golden David award for best overall choir at the Florence International Choir Festival, competing against 12 choirs from nine other countries, including China, the Philippines and South Korea. They were the sole North American representative at the competition, also winning in the chamber choir and sacred categories.

The program also notably includes the world première of Paley’s Notes Adjacent, based on his own written text, with the Winnipeg Singers having performed another Paley piece inspired by three Shakespearean love sonnets in 2007.

Notes Adjacent is an a capella work where “the closeness of the notes is intended to express the closeness of atoms as they vibrate, and how these vibrations might be similar, in theory, to the frequency vibrations of different pitches in music,” Paley writes in an email of his tightly conceived piece. “The sound of the cluster might even be similar to the ‘sound’ of atoms vibrating.” Some websites say they have detected a sound. The original text, which deals with the above, also wonders about life itself. 

The all-Canadian first half of the concert features Sid Robinovitch’s Requiem for a Drummer Boy, originally commissioned by Camerata Nova in 2013 as part of its ongoing series where local composers are invited to re-imagine traditional carols — in this case, The Little Drummer Boy.

Last but not least, there’s also a festive singalong where inspired music fans can warble holiday hits with the singers.

“This has always been one of our favourite features so we don’t want to disappoint our loyal audience,” Klaz says with a chuckle.

“The choir has been having so much fun singing all this fantastic music, and especially Swingle Bells. I loved it back in 2006 and I love it even more. If I’m still here in 10 years, we’ll do it again.”  

holly.harris@shaw.ca