Vocal Blog | The Vocal, A Cappella & Choral Music Online-Mag

by Paul Smith, baritone with VOCES8

Mr Vocal Blog, in the lovely post-LACF haze of warm feelings, amazing a cappella and shared time with friends from around the world in our home town of London, talked about the a cappella community.  It’s a wonderful thing! The LACF brought home, literally, how very intimate our world can be – with friends from all over the globe sharing this love and passion for the same art.  The festival also brought home to me how extreme the parameters of the term ‘a cappella’ can be! Fork seems a world away from what we do in VOCES8, but I loved it all the same!!

After having this experience on my doorstep, we’re now turning to the other side of a cappella life – a life on the road. VOCES8 departs on Saturday for a 7 week tour across the USA, during which we’re spending one month driving from gig to gig, covering about 5,000 miles in our two massive 4×4’s.  It’s going to be quite an experience, and our journey takes us from Colorado up through the likes of New Mexico; the Dakotas (North and South); Iowa, Minnesota – at this time of year, we’ve been told to dress warm!

This opportunity is an amazing one, but it also brings home how much we miss those we leave at home.  Touring is a wonderful, brilliant way to share our music, meet new friends and spread the a cappella word, but it’s also tough on those who have loved ones and family that we won’t be with for such a long time.  I look forward with excitement, tinged with a touch of nervous anticipation and hopes for meeting new people who enrich our lives. I expect every other a cappella nut is nodding their head as they read this!

As we travel, we’ll be making little videos, so do try to keep up with the many weird and wonderful places that VOCES8 will be appearing.  We’re celebrating our fifth year as a professional group, so there will be a little party wherever we go (we hope!!).  If you live in the US, and you love a cappella, then try to find us somewhere on our big adventure….. It’s road trip time.
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Paul is the baritone in VOCES8 and leads their education programme, which  works with 25,000 young people every year, and with long term projects in the UK, USA and France.

‘A Choral Tapestry’ by VOCES8 will be released on Signum Records on 1st February 2012.
‘In the Beginning’, the 5 Year Anniversary EP by VOCES8, is on selected release now.

recorded by Vocal Blog on Tour aka Florian Städtler on Sat, Jan 14th at Kings Place, London

Three times is a tradition, they say. So after Aarhus Vocal Festival 2011 and SoJam 2011, Vocal Blog video greetings from international vocal music events are now becoming a tradition. I haven’t counted the nationalities, groups etc. But I think this series of virtual hellos gives you a pretty nice impression of the artists and audience attending London A Cappella Festival 2012. Have fun watching the videos and thanks for sharing. For those of you on Twitter: I added the Twitter names of the interviewees; the official festival hashtag is #LACF2012).

JEREMY SADLER (UK) – @thejesmeister

JONTE RAMSTEN & KASPER RAMSTRÖM (FIN)  – @forkacappella

ALEX GODFREE (UK) @voicefestival

THE BROWN DERBIES (USA) @brownderbies

TINE FRIS (DEN) – @tinefris

JEEVES MURPHY (USA) – @euphonismdc

OLIVER GRIFFITHS (UK) – @swinglesingers & AARON JENSEN (CAN) – @cadencetweet

HANS CASSA (NED) – @hanscassa

ANNA ASUNTA & MIA HAFREN (FIN) – @forkacappella

WILLY ETESON (UK) – @willyeteson

LORENZO SUBRIZI (ITA)

THE IKON ARTS SUPERGIRLS (UK) – @ikonarts & @londonacappella

MURRAY (NZL)

ROSS LYNDE (CAN) – @cadencetweet , AMANDA ALDAG & CHARLIE FRIDAY (USA) – @euphonismdc

DOLLY MAY (UK)

CARL BERGER (CAN) – @cadencetweet

DYLAN BELL (CAN) – @freeplay

CLAUDIA APPEL (NED)

BILL HARE (USA)

CHRISTINA KRULL (GER)

COSTA PERISTIANIS (UK) – @costaIKON

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Florian Städtler is founder Vocal Blog and Chairman of the European Voices Association. He can’t believe how quickly this blog has developed a following of wonderful, intelligent and nicely-smelling people. Thanks for sharing the greatest ideas and the latest aca-gossip with a growing number of vocal music enthusiasts. If you can’t get enough of this stuff and/or want to get in touch with almost 1000 a cappella buddies like Vocal Blog on Facebook. If you want to make us of Vocal Blog as a filter and aggregator of a cappella news, links, tipps and hilarious tweets, follow Vocal Blog on Twitter.

If you want to sell and/or buy stuff online, go to Acappellazone or write to florian@acappellazone.com. If you think there is a video of high quality of exceptional artistry, let us know so that we can post it on the Acappellazone YouTube channel.

If you like face-to-face communication (like 4-hour candle light dinners or after party allnighters), I agree: This is the best way to communicate. So let’s stay in touch via social media and meet in person when Vocal Blog goes on tour: See you in Stockholm!

Deke Sharon

This post is a spontaneous response by Vocal Blog founder Florian Städtler to an outstanding article written by CASA founder Deke Sharon at www.casa.org yesterday. You can read the original post here and will find my reply. Comments would be very much appreciated.

Hi Deke,

it’s been a while since a vocal music blog post made me think so hard. Let me add a few thoughts from an outside perspective. Outside because a) I’ve been to the US only once (4 days of SoJam 2011), b) I’ve started my “a cappella career” rather late, i.e. when I was about 35 years old and c) as of today I’m making more than half of my money with events that have nothing to do with a cappella at all.

1) I fully agree to the theory of “1% inspiration, 99% perspiration”. Almost all outliers have spent the magic 10.000 hours of work on their very own domain.

2) This means neither becoming a complete nerd (in a negative sense) nor a burnout victim. I haven’t met Deke Sharon in person yet, but as far as I have heard he has a family, owns more than one book and is an exquisite chef.

3) Every community needs different types of members: There are the visionaries, that write “tough” blog posts. There are the dreamers, that inspire people around them with charisma and works of art. There are the busy buddies who can get away with an average of 5 hours sleep. And there are hidden champions who contribute to the growth of “the thing” by an endless number of little steps. You can choose, who you are and find your place.

4) Every art form and genre also needs a foundation of people who just do IT because they love it and others who form a professional elite (and hopefully love it, too). The pros wouldn’t be able to survive without the amateurs: They are the activistis who spread the news, buy tickets and download music. The amateurs are happy to have inspiring role models, efficient organizers and reliable managers that get things done.

5) At the center of this discussion lies the Big Q (as mentioned in my blog post only two days ago: http://www.vocal-blog.net/2012/01/6-lessons-from-lacf-2012) Do you want to stay in this “a cappella bubble” with all these “nice people” who create “harmony for harmony” all the time? Or do you feel the urge to step outside, into the real world and connect with it, even if it may disappoint you more than one time?

Florian Städtler

6) Leaders become leaders mostly because they are able to step out of their comfort zones. Which means to work as hard as Deke described it. And also to look for discomforting evidence all the time, i.e. to not follow the natural impulse to see what’s already ingrained in your thinking. It also means to say the things that no one wants to hear. That’s why I particularly love Deke’s “Tough Love – Tough Market” post: It is provocative without being cynic. (The cynic is a disappointed person, who doesn’t want to be disappointed again).

7) We Europeans would wish their iron being nearly as hot as the US one is. We don’t have collegiate a cappella, Glee is just one of many tv shows and we don’t have The Sing-Off. We don’t have a single mass market and as if this wasn’t enough, most people are still not able to clap on 2 and 4… So making a professional a cappella career over here seems like a suicide mission. But wasn’t that even more futile in the early nineties, when a guy from the West Coast just started it all?

I’m pretty sure that the late 80s Deke Sharon was much too smart and realistic to PLAN his “a cappella career”. Nevertheless, he acted stubbornly and worked perpetually on what meant so much to him. If you read the biographies of Gates, Jobs, The Beatles, Einstein as well as those of every top sportsman, scientiest or musician, they have some things in common: They followed the 10.000 hour rule, they were at the right place at the right time (maybe just by keeping to work on their thing for so long?) and they had the necessary talent.

Can we plan these kind of careers? Certainly not. But it’s good to have a tough benchmark. And a very nice role model. Thanks, Deke for giving us both.

// FSt – Florian Städtler // www.vocal-blog.net, founder // www.europeanvoices.net , co-founder, Chairman of the Board // www.acappellazone.com, co-founder //

// phone: +49 761 38 94 74  // e-mail: info@vocal-blog.net //

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Deke’s “Tough Love” post has led to some interesting replies by peer bloggers, find the links to related articles here:

Jan 15 Vocal Blog – Florian Städtler „6 Lessons from LACF 2012“

Jan 16 CASA – Deke Sharon „Tough Love – Tough Market“ including comments by Peter Hollens, Willy Eteson, Florian Städtler et.al.

Jan 17 Vocal Blog – Florian Städtler “From Europe with (Tough) Love”  including comments by Mark Gregory, RJ Eckhart, Deke Sharon, Willy Etson et.al.

Jan 17 Acatribe – David Bernstein „Calling Out ‚Professional‘ Groups“

Jan 17 RJ A Cappella – Robert-Jon Eckhart „The Big Q“

Jan 19 CASA – Deke Sharon „So What Can I Do?“
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Florian Städtler is founder Vocal Blog and Chairman of the European Voices Association. He can’t believe how quickly this blog has developed a following of wonderful, intelligent and nicely-smelling people. Thanks for sharing the greatest ideas and the latest aca-gossip with a growing number of vocal music enthusiasts. If you can’t get enough of this stuff and/or want to get in touch with almost 1000 a cappella buddies like Vocal Blog on Facebook. If you want to make us of Vocal Blog as a filter and aggregator of a cappella news, links, tipps and hilarious tweets, follow Vocal Blog on Twitter.

If you want to sell and/or buy stuff online, go to Acappellazone or write to florian@acappellazone.com. If you think there is a video of high quality of exceptional artistry, let us know so that we can post it on the Acappellazone YouTube channel.

If you like face-to-face communication (like 4-hour candle light dinners or after party allnighters), I agree: This is the best way to communicate. So let’s stay in touch via social media and meet in person when Vocal Blog goes on tour: See you in Stockholm!

by Florian Städtler on BA 753 from London Heathrow to Basel/Freiburg

London A Cappella Festival was a blast: A growing audience, a buzzing venue, an international line-up and an impressive number of vocal music movers and shakers from places as far as Taipeh, Toronto and Torino. The sheer joy of three days packed with concerts by some of the top artists of the genre, enthusiastic youngsters meeting the pros and the encounters with all those wonderful aca-family members rings on while the 2012 festival is over.

Any event that really meant something to us, leaves us with a kind of post-festival nostalgia, maybe a little hangover and the occasional farewell-miss-you-hope-to-see-you-all-again tweets and status updates. But it also leaves us with a lot of homework if we want to avoid telling this one favourite musicians’ lie: “Let’s do something together!” (The others are: “I’ll never drink again” – “I’ll give you the money back tomorrow” – “I really liked your solo” – “I’ll call you next week” etc.).  So here’s the lessons and the points of action that from my point of view will make London A Cappella Festival 2012 not only a temporary firework of musicality, expertise and camraderie but a step towards the development of our community including the occasional look outside the a cappella bubble, i.e. “the real world”:

1. Education   There is an enormous demand from teachers, music teachers and even business consultants for tools that can help to improve music education as well as the development of social skills in all domains. Singing together is an immensely effective tool and our community has both the capability and the duty to make this tool accessible to as many people as possible.
2. Face-to-Face Communication  The vocal music festival as a combination of concerts, educational events and social activities is the heart and soul of the community. It must be the goal to create ANNUAL events in as many countries, regions and cities as possible. And these events can start very small – it can take years to grow an audience, to find collaborators and to get heard in the media. Meeting people in person will always be the best, so bring on the a cappella events!
3. Internationality   Our knowledge of how to improve and innovate is naturally limited. Some call it tunnel vision, some blame the daily grindstone. But only if we continually try to get a different, a somehow external perspective, we will truly improve and develop both the art form and the business models. We are lucky to already have established transcontinental communication and invitations, but now let’s turn it into concrete collaboration.
4. Infrastructure   We now have three organisations covering Planet A Cappella: CASA (The Contemporary A Cappella Society) was founded on the US West Coast by the godfather of US vocal music, Deke Sharon in 1991. Due to 20 years of hard work and the latest mainstream media successes (Glee, Sing-Off, Straight No Chaser) CASA is stronger than ever and has developed attractive programs for approximately 600 members and 10.000 CASA account holders all over the US of A Cappella. Vocalasia was founded less than two years ago and their track record in China, Korea, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan is impressive to say the least. And by December 2012, EVA (The European Voices Association) has begun to work on the collaboration of existing organizations in more than 25 EU member countries. The first informal talks between the representatives of the organisations were very promising. They left us with the homework to make exchange of know-how and talent an ongoing, structured process.
5. Out of the Comfort Zone   It’s quite cosy in the a cappella bubble, isn’t it? So full of festival-triggered endorphine, why would we want to change a thing at all? Let me tell you why: Because what we have seen yet, could be only the tip of the iceberg. What if Deke Sharon’s vision of an annual a cappella event “no farther than 2 hours drive from every US citizen” came true? What if Clare Chen‘s plan to open up the Chinese mainland market for international a cappella became reality? What if Peder Karlsson’s Real Academy was the vocal music educational web hub of Europe, Asia and the US? What if there was a single platform for worldwide a cappella resources and information? All these ideas are worthless….as long as we’re only talking about them. We need more people who really get things done. And getting things done means leaving the personal comfort zone: Raise money, cut red tape, lobby for your cause, make this unpleasant phone call.
6. The Big Q was already mentioned above: A Cappella Coocoon vs. Dream of the Mainstream. As a cappella mentor Peder Karlsson said, “if you asked a taxi driver, he won’t be able to tell you the name of any vocal group”. Do we want this to change? Or would this destroy the a cappella family? And why not search for the Big A: The way to combine commercial success and community bliss? Let’s make this our common homework.

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This blog post and

Deke’s “Tough Love” post has led to some interesting replies by peer bloggers, find the links to related articles here:

Jan 15 Vocal Blog – Florian Städtler „6 Lessons from LACF 2012“

Jan 16 CASA – Deke Sharon „Tough Love – Tough Market“ including comments by Peter Hollens, Willy Eteson, Florian Städtler et.al.

Jan 17 Vocal Blog – Florian Städtler “From Europe with (Tough) Love”  including comments by Mark Gregory, RJ Eckhart, Deke Sharon, Willy Etson et.al.

Jan 17 Acatribe – David Bernstein „Calling Out ‚Professional‘ Groups“

Jan 17 RJ A Cappella – Robert-Jon Eckhart „The Big Q“

Jan 19 CASA – Deke Sharon „So What Can I Do?“

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Florian Städtler is founder Vocal Blog and Chairman of the European Voices Association. He can’t believe how quickly this blog has developed a following of wonderful, intelligent and nicely-smelling people. Thanks for sharing the greatest ideas and the latest aca-gossip with a growing number of vocal music enthusiasts. If you can’t get enough of this stuff and/or want to get in touch with almost 1000 a cappella buddies like Vocal Blog on Facebook. If you want to make us of Vocal Blog as a filter and aggregator of a cappella news, links, tipps and hilarious tweets, follow Vocal Blog on Twitter.

If you want to sell and/or buy stuff online, go to Acappellazone or write to florian@acappellazone.com. If you think there is a video of high quality of exceptional artistry, let us know so that we can post it on the Acappellazone YouTube channel.

If you like face-to-face communication (like 4-hour candle light dinners or after party allnighters), I agree: This is the best way to communicate. So let’s stay in touch via social media and meet in person when Vocal Blog goes on tour: See you in Stockholm!

by Florian Städtler, from London A Cappella Festival 2012 (#LACF2012)

It’s Saturday morning and it’s the third day of the third edition of the London A Cappella Festival 2012. We’ve seen wonderful concerts featuring The Vasari Singers (UK), The Boxettes (UK), Cadence (CAN) and FORK (FIN). The Schools on Stage project powered by Voice Festival UK made us smile and cheer, an arrangement competition supported by Oxford University Press resulted in fantastic music, countless foyer performances and encounters of both pro and amateur artists entertained us. We met and talked to a cappella aficionados and newbies, to visitors and vocal music tourists hailing from as far as San Fransisco, Taiwan, Toronto, Oslo, Torino, Boston and even a music lover from Milton Keynes…

I’ve been attending the London A Cappella Festival since it all started in January 2010 and I must say it here and now: What The Swingle Singers as hosts and curators together with super-pro organizers at Ikon Arts have build in less than three years is the perfect example of artistic vision and will combined with professional promotional execution. It’s impossible to name all the people here, who have contributed to the three-day vocal music extravaganza, but let’s just name two who in my eyes did an outstanding job: Clare Wheeler, alto with The Swingle Singers, has become one of the leading communicators of international a cappella. Thanks to her personal dedication, the number of overseas guest has become pretty impressive. The second mover and shaker who deserves special mention is Ikon Arts‘ Jessica Hill. She has become the festival’s managerial backbone and seems to master the multiple tasks of running LACF with unbelievable friendliness and placidity. Along with Ikon Arts owner Costa Peristianis, Nicola Semple, Beccy Chilton and Natalia Franklin Pierce she made the festival happen and the growing number of attendants happy.

FORK & FSt

Besides the musical “core business”, countless special and hilarious things happen(ed) during this festival: A Cappella rockers FORK just twittered that they are going shopping (you will probably see the results on stage next time), recording legend Bill Hare (USA) just found a Pentatonix-lookalike in the British museum, Joan Hare flirted with an double-decker bus driver, the “Single Singers” (no typo) gathered for their first rehearsal after setting up a 20+ vocal group via social media (there will be a special on that later), this afternoon we’re going to see two panels discussing the state of affairs of contemporary a cappella and the pudding, cake and hi-heel-lovers found bliss in High Tea at Montagnue and at the buzzing after show parties at a pub called The Fellow.

My most important mission of LACF2012 was of a very different kind: On Friday, 13th of January, the first semi-official London A Cappella VOCAL JOG was to take place, another try to motivate a cappella people to get over their hangovers and join me on a little run during events like this. I have been running through cities during all my vocal music travelling life, but the maximum group of Vocal Joggers as of 2011 was two participants: Morten Vinther, baritone of The Real Group broke the spell on October 16th 2011 and went for the first ever non-solo Vocal Jog in my hometown Freiburg.

But for London A Cappella, I wanted to make it big time  – and I was supported by Willy Eteson former tenor and business director of The Swingle Singers who’s a slightly eccentric British foodie and hobby star chef today. While serving self-made pork specialties at Ikon Art’s desk all through the festival, he dared me: If I was able to run up Primrose Hill (the highest “mountain” in London City ;-) with a group of at least four other Vocal Joggers, he would be there at 8:45 on Friday 13th to cater the runners with home-baked power bars, bananas and water. At this point in time, there were 9 potential runners registered at the London A Cappella Vocal Jog Facebook page, so I was optimistic even though I knew that 4 of the listed 9 might have been a bit too optimistic regarding their being at the IBIS Euston hotel lobby at 8:30 in the morning.

Friday 13th came, I woke up at around 8:00 (after staying at the bar for much too long with the wonderful Hans Cassa of Montezuma’s Revenge), felt better than expected…but then got the first bad news: Line Groth, singer and arranger for Danish electro a cappella group Postyr Project didn’t feel well. Neither did Joakim Skog, executive producer of Stockholm’s The Real Vocal Festival. And I still had no confirmation of Nicholas Girard (House Jacks, Overboard, The Sing-Off) and John Buchanan Lau from Edinborough. So I went to the hotel lobby, thinking of Willy Eteson fighting his way through the London rush hour traffic all the way from Hackney, parking illegally and running up Primrose Hill with Vocal Jog delicacies…to find no more than two or three runners…

On top of the Vocal Jog world

As it turned out, Friday 13th was my lucky Vocal Jog day: The first one to show up was Hans Cassa along with the slightly jet-lagged US star Nick Girard and at 8:30h Annemarie Homann (NED, Single Singers founder), Claudia Appel Dom (another surprise guest from The Netherlands) and John Buchanan Lau, a cappella enthusiast from Edinborough joined and made me very happy vocal Jogger. The weather was beautiful, quite cold, but blue skies over London Town. So after passing two blocks we entered Regent’s park and after 20 minutes saw Primrose Hill – which for Londoners (and especially the Dutch guests) is the equivalent of the K2. In spite of general sleep deficit, transcontinental jet-lag and traces of hangovers we made it up Primrose Hill, but: No Willy Eteson…!

…but a fantastic Vocal Jog reception committee à la surprise: Bill Hare (he wore a jacket, which means it was freaking cold!), his mother Joan Hare and their good friend from Slovakia, Sona Killianova gave us a (shivering) big hand and took pictures with the proud runners in front of the London skyline and the rising sun. At around 9:10am with the photo session done, I told my running mates that I had hoped for Willy, but assumed that he got word of the declining number of participants or might simply be stuck in the morning traffic. Sure to be served something delicious later that day we said farewell to the trembling Californian-Slovakian reception committee and started to run down the hill…

…but only seconds later we heard Bill, Joan and Sona shouting and yelling, so we turned round and there he was: Mr. Aca-Deli, Richard “Willy” Eteson with the Vocal Jog catering that will go down in history. So we ran up again, took even more photos, got the right dose of doping, said thank you again and hit the road to make it to the hotels in time for breakfast. These, my friends, are true moments to remember, thank you London A Cappella for supporting this “crazy” (Clare Wheeler) project and spreading the Vocal Jog news.

The London Vocal Jog team 2012: Claudia Appel Dom, Nicholas Girard, Annemarie Homann, Florian Städtler, Willy Eteson, John Buchanan Lau, Hans Cassa

If you loved this story and are a runner (no matter what level, we do not run longer than 30-40 minutes, pace and distance don’t matter), send an e-mail to info@vocal-blog.net and you’ll be invited to future Vocal Jog events. Just to let you know: Jeeves Murphy from Washington DC has been appointed Vocal Jog ambassador for the US during the after show party yesterday. And the next European vocal music highlight, the Real Vocal Festival in Stockholm, Sweden is seriously considering making the Vocal Jog an official part of the festival’s progamme (August 16-19, 2012). Last but not least, Line Groth who will come to my hometown Freiburg next week to showcase Postyr Project at the Kulturbörse Freiburg (Jan 24, 20:30h) has told me that she persists to do the Vocal Jog with me there, no matter how tight the schedule may be. So I’m  looking forward to many more great pictures of fit singers & endorphine-addicted aca-fans from all over the world.

Do-doo-run-run-run, do-doo-run-run!

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Florian Städtler is founder Vocal Blog and Chairman of the European Voices Association. He can’t believe how quickly this blog has developed a following of wonderful, intelligent and nicely-smelling people. Thanks for sharing the greatest ideas and the latest aca-gossip with a growing number of vocal music enthusiasts. If you can’t get enough of this stuff and/or want to get in touch with almost 1000 a cappella buddies like Vocal Blog on Facebook. If you want to make us of Vocal Blog as a filter and aggregator of a cappella news, links, tipps and hilarious tweets, follow Vocal Blog on Twitter.

If you want to SELL or BUY vocal music stuff online, go to Acappellazone or write to florian@acappellazone.com. If you think there is a video of high quality of exceptional artistry, let us know so that we can post it on the Acappellazone YouTube channel.

If you like face-to-face communication (like 4-hour candle light dinners or after party allnighters), I agree: This is the best way to communicate. So let’s stay in touch via social media and meet in person when Vocal Blog goes on tour: See you in Stockholm!