Northern Harmony Concert & Singing Workshop at the American Museum, Claverton Manor, Bath
Hosted by Songways, Northern Harmony, the unique world-music vocal ensemble from Vermont in the USA, performed at the stunning American Museum at Claverton Manor, and gave a singing workshop to share their wonderful songs and voices. Regular Songways singers were joined by many people from further afield who gathered for both events.
The concert was a vibrant evening of world harmony traditions including South African songs and dances, traditional polyphony from Georgia, Corsica, and the Balkans, American shape-note singing, early German choral music and a haunting folksong from Syria. Several of the Northern Harmony singers were also accomplished instrumentalists, and accompanied the Balkan songs with fiddle and accordion.
With Northern Harmony singers supporting each vocal part at the workshop, we learned a lively bluegrass gospel number, exploring the rhythms and vocal style of the tradition. Complementing this, we were encouraged to produce the richer darker tones of the South African choral style, learning a beautiful and moving South African song, Siphamandla by Bongani Magatyana. Here it is sung by the 2014 Northern Harmony group.
Northern Harmony Concert – American Museum in Bath Thurs 9 Oct 2014 : South African song: Siphamandla by Bongani Magatyana from David Lewis-Baker on Vimeo.
More about Northern Harmony
The sixteen brilliant Northern Harmony singers, led by Larry Gordon, present a thrilling mix of world harmony traditions including South African songs and dances, traditional polyphony from Georgia, Corsica, and the Balkans, American shape-note singing and quartet gospel, and renaissance motets. Now on their seventeenth European tour, Northern Harmony has won a wide reputation for their remarkable command of the different singing styles and timbres appropriate to these different traditions.
Northern Harmony is the highest level performing group under the umbrella of the world music organization Village Harmony, which sponsors singing camps and workshops in New England and many parts of the world (www.villageharmony.org). The singers are primarily young graduates of Village Harmony singing programs, and most have studied traditional singing styles first hand with native teachers in South Africa, Bulgaria, Corsica and Caucasus Georgia.
Their 2016 tour began in early March with two weeks in Caucasus Georgia, working with Ketevan Mindorashvili, leader of the Zedashe Ensemble to polish their Georgian repertoire. After a series of performances across Georgia they have traveled to northern Scotland for the Earthsings singing week in Findhorn, where they are featured teachers and performers. Then will follow two weeks in northern Germany, a month in the UK, and finally a week of performances at home in New England.
South Africa has a particularly powerful and appealing folk harmony singing tradition, with a rich, resonant vocal sound, and wonderfully syncopated rhythm. The singing is always accompanied by dancing, with the rhythm of the dance movements often in counterpoint to the song.
Georgia’s ancient three-part harmony singing tradition features a dark, sonorous vocal quality, and startling harmonies, unlike anything in European music. Traditional Corsican singing, passed down through oral tradition, features two highly ornamented upper voices over a more sustained harmonic bass. The excitement for the listeners and singers both comes from the impassioned delivery, the surprising harmonic shifts which ripple from voice to voice, and the buzzing vocal timbre which creates an extremely powerful sound rich in overtones.
Shape-note singing, one of Northern Harmony’s trademarks, had its origins in the community singing schools of 18th century New England. It is simultaneously a sacred and a social singing tradition, featuring stark, open harmonies, rhythmic, contrapuntal “fuging” sections, and the marvelous sacred poetry of the 18th century English hymn writer Isaac Watts and his followers. The concert will also feature traditional and contemporary arrangements of 1930’s gospel quartet numbers, with tight harmonies and catchy rhythms.
Northern Harmony also performs a wide variety of village music from the Balkan countries. This music features the characteristic bright, “hard-voiced” Balkan vocal timbre, with dissonant harmonies frequently based on drones, and irregular dance meters in 7, 9 and 11. Many of these songs are accompanied by clarinet, accordion, fiddle and tambura.
For further information visit the Northern Harmony website.