The London-based Swingle Singers are legendary in the world of a cappella. Their extensive repertoire encompasses Pop, Rock, Jazz, Latin and Classical styles and all sounds are made using only the human voice. With five Grammy Awards and over fifty recordings, the group has set the standard of vocal agility while pushing the boundaries of musical innovation for over four decades. Today’s incarnation of Swingle Singers are young, sexy and unbelievably talented – and are committed to bringing the versatile world of a cappella to the masses. Don’t miss their stunning music video, Libertango, on YouTube.

As part of the East Texas A Cappella Celebration, the Swingle Singers will present a workshop earlier in the day on March 31 for area singers and vocal ensembles. More details to come.

We are in need of sponsors to help support this one-of-a-kind, community event. If you are interested or for more information, please contact us here or call (903) 312-9903. Liberty Hall is a non-profit organization and gifts are tax deductible.

Broadway Square is hosting “Mom’s Nite Out” on Thursday, May 5, 4:30 pm – 8:30 pm! A much deserved night out for the “girls,” this free event is a great way for local moms to have a night out! Make sure to mark your calendars and don’t miss this fun-filled event designed to pamper busy moms. Join us for an evening of beauty advice & makeovers, food & drink sampling, prize giveaways, fashions shows & more! Fabulous swag bags will be available while supplies last. More information coming soon. If you or your business would like to participate in this event, call 903-561-7055 for details!

7 P.M., Saturday, April 9, 2011

From Classical to Jazz, Barbershop to Gospel, area vocal groups of all sizes and genres come together to celebrate the beauty and magic of the human voice at the third annual East Texas A Cappella Celebration. The free community concert will be held Saturday, April 9, 2011, at 7 P.M., in the Glenwood Church of Christ auditorium, at the corner of Rice and Hollytree, in Tyler. Participating groups include The Blessing (women’s contemporary worship), Clearly Vocal (five-voice vocal jazz), Faithful Praise (gospel), Then & Now (barbershop quartet), with a special appearance by the Bullard High School Choir, under the direction of Cindi Galletly.

We are still looking for sponsors, so if you would be interested in helping make this unique event possible, please contact us.

Download the flyer.

Visit the Facebook event page.

By 5 P.M., we had dropped off the kids, loaded all the equipment, picked up the members of Clearly Vocal (Stefanie, Kim, Andy, John, Don and Ben, our new sound guy) and left Tyler. Nineteen hours later, we pulled into our hotel in Durham, North Carolina, to check in. The guys were gracious to go unload our equipment at the Carolina Theater, where we would be performing that night, while Stef and I slept!

By 4:30 we were all dressed in concert attire. We wore our black outfits, accented with purple and blue, like we wore in Denver, for those of you who saw that look. Of course Stef and I didn’t wear our exact outfits, as we are both pregnant, so we had some wrap shirts made. I was pleased with how they turned out! Then we loaded up to head to the theater to begin our sound check by 5:30. When we got there, Sonos was having a sound check/rehearsal. They were one of the professional groups performing that weekend. Wow. Truly amazing.

Running sound for everyone at the theater that weekend was Tony Huerta, probably the absolute best sound guy in contemporary a cappella today. He regularly runs sound for Take 6, m-pact, Nota, Sonos and others. He was also the guy who ran the sound at the Rocky Mountain Harmony Sweepstakes in which we competed last year. I just think it’s pretty cool that we can claim Tony twice as our sound guy! Ben, our sound guy, was in sound engineer heaven watching over Tony’s shoulder, learning, but also helping Tony know what was coming up in our songs!

We hit our sound check and worked out our in-ear monitor kinks and other little things. It really felt rushed and we couldn’t keep a consistent pitch and we were having tempo issues and hearing issues and we were getting irritated with each other, yadda yadda yadda. And suddenly our time was up. Next on the schedule was the Contemporary A Cappella League (CAL) reception, which was upstairs, but before we ran up there, we took a minute to regroup, to remember to think as a group and to breathe and de-stress. Thankfully it worked, and our shoulders relaxed back into their proper positions.

We headed upstairs and enjoyed reconnecting with the other CAL groups as well as the directors of SoJam and of the Contemporary A Cappella Society (CASA). Also in attendance were the members of Sonos and Basix, the other pro group that was performing Saturday night. What an honor to rub shoulders with these people! Other “big dogs” included Dave Brown and Christopher Diaz, the hosts of the Mouth Off Show, Bill Hare, the producer of many pro, CAL and college CDs (Nota, Straight No Chaser, The Red States, On the Rocks, etc.), and Ed Boyer, one of the arrangers for the show The Sing Off. The place was packed with talent!

Friday night, the show consisted of six college groups who were competing against each other. After they all sang, we performed for thirty minutes while the judges’ votes were being tallied. The theater was JAM PACKED! About 1000 in attendance. Probably the biggest audience for which we’ve sung. Overall, it was the best show that we five have ever done! “The Moment” of our show was when we put our mics down, stood in a semicircle a the front of the stage and sang “And Can It Be.” I was really nervous about doing this song, because there were some pretty anti-Christian people in that crowd! But after the show, the two most talked about songs were Java Jive (always a crowd pleaser) and And Can It Be! They were impressed that 1.) we would put down our mics, and 2.) that we would be brave enough to share our faith with everyone! Seems they really appreciated both things. To all of you whom I know have been praying for the hearts of those listening, THANK YOU! I believe hearts were touched and that God was glorified.

Before our last song, I  gave a little motivational speech especially to the college kids encouraging them to keep singing! Most think that if they don’t plan to sing professionally, that their singing days are over after college. Our goal was to show them that they can keep singing at a high-quality level, if that’s what they love to do. We can’t NOT sing, and so we began Clearly Vocal.

After the show, we signed autographs, passed out business cards and received a flood of congrats and great jobs. From the theater, everyone went to an after-party where we all got to interact with other groups and more fans and relive the evening. What a night!

Saturday was packed with amazing workshops, like “Say What?” with Dave Brown, “Organic Arranging” with Christopher Diaz, “Live Sound Basics” with Tony Huerta, “The Cool Factor” with Claude McKnight, “Essential Listening” with Benjamin Stephens, and many others. Interspersed throughout the day were mini-performances by three other CAL groups: Euphonism, from Washington DC, Treble, from New York City, and The Red States, also from NYC. It’s just neat to see other “real people” doing what we do!

We raced from there to supper where we ate with the other CAL groups. We scarfed down our food as quickly as we could so that we could make it back to the theater to change and get ready for our last performance. Saturday night, we went with all black and white. We hated to upstage the pros, you know.

There was only one little glitch on Saturday night. Our in-ear monitors were off for the first half of our first song! (Words, by The Real Group.) All we could hear was the bounce-back from the back of the theater! Therefore, our tempo was a little slower than usual! We managed, though, and when we finally did get our ears back, thankfully we were all in the same tempo and key! Ha! The show must go on!

We were told to do two songs to open for the other groups, and as we walked off stage, Thomas “Tekay” King, who was running the groups backstage and one of the judges for the CAL Showcase, said “That’s it? You had 15 minutes!” That was the first we had heard of it! Oh well. Better to leave the crowd wanting more. Plus they were really there for Sonos and Basix that night!

Then we got to join the crowd and watch as Sonos and then Basix performed. What an incredible concert! It became very clear why they are the professionals. Sidenote: as Basix was singing, I leaned over to John and asked, “Are those our mic stands they’re using?” He grinned real big and nodded. Again, I geeked out. After the show, I asked Chris, one of Basix’s members, if they enjoyed using our stands, to which he replied, “Those were yours? Oh, thank you, thank you! They were so easy to slide up and down; much better than ours!”

The Saturday night after-party was a blast, too. We had so much fun hanging out with new friends one last time and reliving the evening. We got back to the hotel around 1:30 A.M.

Sunday morning, we checked out of the hotel and headed back to Duke a fascinating workshop on “The Science of Singing.” We were embarrassed and honored when the instructor motioned to us and said to the rest of the class, “This is Clearly Vocal in here, by the way. They already do all of this stuff I’m talking about, which is why they sound so amazing. I don’t really know why they’re in here!” So sweet.

And finally, we went to our master class with none other than Claude McKnight himself. Claude McKnight is the founder of Take 6 and the brother of R&B artist, Brian McKnight. Of all the SoJam attendees, he most likely has the best trained ear, especially for jazz. What an honor!

Claude gave us some very practical tips to use on each song and worked with us on how to accomplish those things. Things like grabbing the audience from the first word, standing and moving with a purpose, conversing with the audience in-between songs rather than giving speeches, and other things like that. Those seemingly little things made a huge difference as we worked. I can’t wait to apply those principles to the rest of our show!

After grabbing lunch, we drove out of Durham at 2 P.M., rotated drivers through the night, hit a traffic jam in which we were stopped for a little over thirty minutes and rolled into Tyler at 7:30 Monday morning so the boys could go to work. Crazy.

What a weekend. So physically exhausting, but so rewarding. So many connections made or renewed. We were encouraged, had our egos stroked, inspired, humbled, challenged, refreshed and refocused. Can’t wait to go back next year!

For more about SoJam 2010, listen to the Mouth Off Show podcast, with Dave Brown and Christopher Diaz.

Kim

Related event

• Artist: Clearly Vocal
• Date: Saturday, October 23, 2010
• Time: 11:30 AM
• City: Clearly Vocal in Golden
• Venue: Golden Sweet Potato Festival
• Country: US
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