Overtones in Canon | Mundwerk

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The Munich a cappella group Mundwerk sings Brother Jaques not only with voices in canon, but also with overtones. My student and master class graduate Oliver Zunker (now no longer with the group) sings together with his colleague Jens Ickert the canon exclusively with overtones. Oliver himself is an excellent overtone teacher, as you can hear. I think the whole choral arrangement is superb!

All tones of the melody are already contained in a single keynote (harmonic 6 to 13, cf. composing with overtones). So you can sing them on one fundamental note.

Here you can download the sheet music for free →

Sources & Links

https://www.facebook.com/oliver.zunker?fref=ts

http://www.mundwerk.biz/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A8re_Jacques

World Music or experiment? – Ensemble Supersonus

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Supersonus – Rosary Sonata 1 and Ritus

SUPERSONUS
The European Resonance Ensemble
http://www.supersonus.eu

Anna-Maria Hefele, overtone singing
Eva-Maria Rusche, harpsichord
Anna-Liisa Eller, kannel
Wolf Janscha, jew´s harp
Marco Ambrosini, nyckelharpa, jew´s harp

New experimental overtone music of the group Supersonus – The European Resonance Ensemble (Resonance, not Renaissance) brings overtone singing into a whole new musical context, something between world music and experiment. The instruments are in fact from Renaissance times, but probably have hardly been heard in this combination. And overtone singing is quite new to this world of sound.

Anna-Maria Hefele is one of the most promising new overtone singing talents in Germany. Her Western overtone singing style derives from the contemporary Western music, and not from Central Asian styles. However, you can hear influences of Mongolian throat singing in her way of pressing the voice. Her approach to music is refreshing experimentally. She easily connects various musical instruments, dance and drama with her versatile vocal techniques.

Overtone Singing Classical Guitarist – Pavel Steidl

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Pavel Steidl – And you go to Ithaca, too?

Pavel Steidl is a Czech classical concert guitarist known for his distinctive style and for occasionally incorporating overtone singing into his interpretations.

In this video he plays his own composition And you go to Ithaca, too? in a recording from the Guitar Virtuosos Festival in Moscow, 04/19/2014. For those who are more interested in overtone singing, I have “fast-forwarded” the video a bit. To hear the whole composition, start the video from the beginning.

Further links

Song of the birds | Gareth Lubbe

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Das berühmte katalanische Volkslied “El cant dels ocells“, durch Pablo Casals spektakulären Auftritt bei den United Nations 1971 im Alter von fast 95 Jahren zu einem Symbol des Friedens und der Freiheit geworden, wird hier interpretiert von The Quartet of Peace in einer berührenden Fassung mit Obertongesang. Das Quartett spielte in der Leipziger Thomaskirche (als Wirkungsstätte Johann Sebastian Bachs bekannt) ein Konzert zu Ehren vierer südafrikanischer Nobelpreisträger, wobei dieses Lied Nelson Mandela gewidmet ist.

Gareth Lubbe, aus Südafrika stammender Bratschist des Quartet of Peace und Professor für Bratsche an der Essener Folkwang-Hochschule, ist ein ausgezeichneter Obertonsänger und Vertreter des westlich-polyphonen Stils. 

La Grande Bellezza – with overtones to the Academy Award | Vox Clamantis

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CD Filia Sion

Vox Clamantis - Filia Sion

Die Musik zum Film “La Grande Bellezza” (Die große Schönheit, 2013) von Paolo Sorrentino bedient sich u. a. der Obertongesang-Interpretation von Pérotins “Beata viscera” des estnischen a cappella Ensembles Vox Clamantis. Beata viscera ist auf der CD Filia Sion enthalten.

Beata viscera ist ein Werk des französischen Komponisten Pérotin aus dem 12. Jh und gehört zur frühesten Mehrstimmigkeit in Europa.

Obertongesang verleiht der Komposition eine mystische Stimmung. Natürlich ist Obertongesang nicht Bestandteil der Originalkomposition von Perotin, sondern wurde von Vox Clamantis hinzugefügt. Mir gefällt diese Modifikation sehr, besonders deshalb, weil die Obertöne kontrolliert und musikalisch integriert werden. Sie bilden eine eigenständige Melodie und sind vermutlich nicht, wie weit verbreitet, Zufallsprodukte, sondern ganz gezielt gesungen. Obwohl manchmal die Dur-Terz der Obertonreihe mit der Moll-Terz der dorischen Melodie in Konflikt steht. Ich bringe meinen Masterclass-Studenten bei, diese Konflikte gezielt zu umgehen, es sei denn, sie wären ausdrücklich erwünscht.

Beata viscera hatte übrigens früher schon einmal das Hilliard Ensemble zu einer Neuinterpretation mit dem Saxophonisten Jan Garbarek angeregt (auf der CD Officium).

Bildnachweis: Beata Viscera von Perotin (Wolfenbüttel Digital Library) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Aachen Overtone Choir in “The Life Of The Buddha” (BBC Documentary)

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The Life of the Buddha. The London-based composer Glenn Keiles composed the film music for this 50-minute BBC documentary for the Aachen Obertonchor conducted by Wolfgang Saus in 2002. With a small group we recorded the choir part in a single day in St. Gereon in Giesenkirchen. Participants: Britta Blisniewski, Ellen Kreft, Helga and Wolfhard Barke, Chris and Tim Ellis, Ralf Malzkorn (and I of course).

Glenn brought the production manager and all the equipment from England, just to fly on to South Africa the next day. He must have mixed the pre-recorded solos and instrumental parts during the flight, because already in the evening the master was ready to listen.

Since we did not have an overall impression of the piece in advance and did not know the film, it was an exciting work to record the phrases according to the composer’s very precise sound concepts. The overtones were partly notated. In some cases there was room for improvisation. The fundamental tones were always precisely written down.

The reactions of Glenn’s fellow composers in London were very interesting: they wanted to know how he programmed such a natural and lively sounding synthesizer sound. In 2003 overtone singing in chorus was still largely unknown to composers.

International movie data base: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1806108/

 

Adele in Throat Singing Style – by Kuular

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Throat singing cover of Rolling in the Deep (Adele) by Kuular Music. Mongolian throat singing breaks new ground. What do you think of the mixture of traditional Khöömej with western music?