MetaFilter posts tagged with choral

LLangollen Eisteddfod

Balonious Assault — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 15:50:29 -0800

The 2009 Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod competitions have concluded, with the Pavarotti Trophy for Choir of the World being awarded to The Westminster Chorus. The Eisteddfod includes choral, solo, instrumental, and dance competitions. Video of the competitions can be seen here.

Eric Whitacre

greekphilosophy — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:23:36 -0800

Over the past few years, Eric Whitacre has been taking the composition world by storm. And now he's all over the web. (Most links silent, personal website has an autoplay rainstorm going on.) His choral works range from the mysterious and brooding Water Night to the rambunctious modern madrigal, With a Lily In Your Hand, to the wonderfully lush Sleep (formerly a setting of Robert Frost's "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" - tragically halted by copyright infringement, but still available thanks to the magic of YouTube). While his instrumental compositions run the spectrum from silly musical parody (Godzilla Eats Las Vegas) to poignant melancholy (October) with some delicate crossover between vocal and instrumental (Lux Aurumque - first choral, then instrumental!). If you are or think you may be even remotely interested in contemporary classical music, you owe it to yourself to become familiar with the work of Eric Whitacre.

Streaming audio from former Soviet Georgia.

nebulawindphone — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:09:07 -0800

Streaming audio of traditional music from the former Soviet republic of Georgia. This is some of the strangest, most haunting and blissed-out singing you can hear on this planet. (And check out those swell outfits, fellas!) The front page tracks are:

Orira, sung by the Georgian Voices. That yodeling you hear is called krimanchuli.
Chona, sung by the Mamuli folk ensemble.
Lechkhumuri Makruli, sung by the Rustavi Choir, who are probably the best-known in America of all these groups thanks to a few albums that came out here in the 90s.
The youtube link is a Georgian pop group called Orera. Apparently several of the members went on to get famous in the Soviet Union, but I'm having trouble finding information on them in English.

There's a lot of good stuff elsewhere on the site, although there's also a lot of broken links, missing files and badly ripped audio; browsing through it can be frustrating. Some of my current favorites:

Kheuro, by the Mamuli ensemble: slow and powerful.
Orovela, by the Rustavi Choir: no harmony to speak of on this one, but the melody's worth it. The penultimate phrase gives me shivers — it's like he just tosses his voice into the air and waits for it to come down.
Khasanbegura is one of the classics of the Georgian repertoire. It's sung here by the Georgian Voices; if you're into yodeling, though, be sure to check out this snippet of it on youtube, which really showcases the awesome krimanchuli part.
This set of recordings from the 30s by Varlam Simonishvili. Some really intense performances; sadly, the sound quality's not great. More brilliant yodeling if you're into that sort of thing.
Mravaljamier, by Quintet Urmuli. ("Mravaljamier" isn't a title so much as a genre of songs — they're toasts wishing someone long life. You can find more examples on the Georgian Voices page.)

So far I've been linking to folk choirs, but there's a whole parallel tradition of sacred polyphony in the Orthodox church:

Try a few chorales from the Church of St. Pantelmion the Healer: Tsmindao Chmerto, Romelni Kerubinta.
The Sioni cathedral choir sound to me like they're more influenced by Western church music. The Alilo (means "alleluia" — a whole genre again rather than a title) sounds like something you'd hear in a European cathedral, but it sure is beautifully done. Or try Christ is Risen from the Dead for a more Georgian sound — and a floor-shaking bass voice on the first line.

It's not fair - life was good before

madamjujujive — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 11:28:58 -0800

If you overdosed on being thankful yesterday, the Birmingham Complaints Choir or the Helsinki Complaints Choir might be an antidote. (YouTube alert) More on complaints choirs.

Allegri's Miserere Mei

turbodog — Wed, 23 Mar 2005 11:03:55 -0800

Gregorio Allegri's Miserere Mei [MP3, Coral cache] has been performed in the Sistine Chapel every Holy Week since 1638, but the haunting a cappella piece had a long, strange trip to get to the outside world.