Resound Voices
Sam Barton (conductor)
Rebelles
Antonia Hyatt (conductor)
Gaynor Gallant (piano, oboe)
Francesca Urquhart (double bass)
Tom Hyatt (percussion)
7.30pm, Saturday 14 December 2024
St Luke's Church, Brighton
★★★★
It’s always great to see what interesting repertoire that ‘genre fluid’ Resound Voices and their partners in crime, the Rebelles will come up with. But this time, for Twistmas’, they excelled themselves, with a highly eclectic mix of works from all kinds of genres. With classical, folk, musical theatre and popular music on the menu, pretty much all bases were covered. Resound Voices, a lower voice ensemble, was founded in 2011 by Stefan Holmstrom, and is now conducted by Sam Barton, and the Rebelles, a women’s ensemble is conducted by Antonia Hyatt. And speaking of menu, their ‘theme’ for the evening was to structure their programme around a feast, with amuse-bouche and appetisers leading to a main course, dessert and a final digestif encore.
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| Sam Barton & Resound Voices |
So Resound Voices gave us the amuse-bouche course, with a mostly Nordic flavour. Söderberg’s arrangement of the traditional Swedish herding song, Limu Limu Lima began with a strong, smooth baritone line, and the harmonies once established were precisely tuned. American composer Rosephanye Powell’s Non Nobis, Domine contrasted well with its bouncing rhythms and crossing musical ideas, and here we heard the men’s full warm tutti sound for the first time, with a strong, bright final chord. Back to Sweden next, with Gustaf Nordqvist’s popular Christmas song, Jul, Jul, Strålande, Jul. This gave the guys the opportunity to show off one of their major strengths, their gloriously bright high first tenors, and the overall sound here was beautifully sweet, with faultless tuning. Then to the Disney film Frozen, but no, not that song – instead, the Sámi song, Vuelie (the South Sámi word for ‘yoik’, the chanting style of their traditional songs). Once again, the high tenors shone here, and conductor Sam Barton shaped a strong dynamic range here too. They ended their section with a tricky arrangement of Pure Imagination (from the original Willy Wonka film), not quite nailing every complex harmony here, but delivering the song’s sentiment with commitment.
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| Antonia Hyatt & the Rebelles |
Then it was the turn of the Rebelles to give us the appetisers. They began with conductor Antonia Hyatt’s own arrangement of The Movie In My Mind, a darkly moving song from Miss Saigon. The women delivered this with passion, and immediately demonstrated their ability to tell a story, with a particularly strong solo part standing out. An arrangement of Jane Siberry’s The Valley followed, with a rich contralto sound on display, although a few of the middle harmonies were a little unclear here. Noël Nouvelet followed, with drum and double bass joining. The French text was clearly a bit of a challenge here, with more reliance on their copies than usual, but it was a nonetheless striking performance, upping the energy levels of the evening. A lively if slightly frenetic performance of Bach’s Suscepit Israel from the Magnificat followed, with oboe, piano and bass accompaniment. They finished their set with David Guetta’s When Love Takes Over, a great upbeat number, with the combined voices carrying well over the full band accompaniment here.
The evening’s first half finished with the two groups joining, firstly for a lovely arrangement of Gabriel’s Message, and it was great to hear their full combined choral harmonies for the first time. They then finished with a crazy Alleluia by Jake Runestad, with whole tone scales, constantly changing time signatures and wild energy, all held together expertly by Barton’s clear conducting.
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| Resound Voices & the Rebelles |
The second half opened with a comedic turn from three of the men, and a fun and cheeky number, Santa’s My Boyfriend, the guys hamming it up beautifully. Nicholas Ryan Kelly’s dark Christmas number, Cold Moon followed, complete with quotes from the Carol of the Bells. Here it was perhaps most noticeable that the guys, positioned a little further back on the steps than the women, were muted a little by the church’s acoustic – a more forward position would have better supported their sound. Once again in Sam Barton’s very tricky arrangement of Have Yourself A Merry Little Xmas, it was again the first tenors that shone, holding things together as the very complex harmonies shifted beneath them. Another dark number followed, the very intricate and clever Time, by J L Cook, with the guys managing well the rhythms as words are dropped from the text on each repetition. They ended their ‘main course’ with Children Go Where I Send Thee, in a version popular with US choruses, including the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus, giving it particular significance for first tenor James, who introduced it. They gave us their most energetic performance of the evening so far here, and nailed the building up of the clapping rhythms.
And onto dessert! The Rebelles began with a wonderfully sassy rendition of Gonna Wash That Man, with an especially strong solo line, and then contrasted it with The Lord is my Shepherd by Howard Goodall (yes, of The Vicar of Dibley fame). The solo here was bright and pure, with clear choral harmonies from the rest of the singers. Reger’s Mary’s Cradle Song had a warm full unison sound, with a suitably gentle lilt. Then they finished with more gospel, a confidently dramatic rendition of Music Down in My Soul, with powerful soprano and alto solos.
The choirs then came together for Baba Yetu, a setting of the Lord’s Prayer in Swahili, actually composed by Christopher Tin for the video game, Civilization IV. Andreas from Resound Voices led with a commanding solo, and the combined choral voices supported with great energy. Then for their ‘digestif’ encore, Rutter’s Banquet Fugue. Not being a fan of Rutter generally, Rutter doing ‘humour’ is even less palatable for me, so not an ideal digestif! However the performance here was nevertheless polished and provided a joyful finale to an evening full of variety, complexity, and above all, fabulous singing from both ensembles.
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