The City of London Festival kicks off again with a series of gigs. The first possibly swingable one is by the Swingle Singers.

Note, from the spiel below and a couple YouTube clips, I get the sense that they do a mix of classical and swing, all done a capella. So don't expect to dance to every tune, but they do look very impressive nonetheless!


http://www.colf.org/event-details.cfm?e=847


MUSIC IN THE YARD - Swingle Singers - Tuesday 30 June

Time: 12:30
Guildhall Yard
Free Event

The renowned vocal group famed for tackling all manner of classical material (baroque, fugues, madrigals, orchestral overtures) and switching them to an a cappella swing setting, the Swingle Singers was formed in Paris during the early '60s by American expatriate Ward Swingle. By the time of their 1963 album debut, the group comprised eight voices -- Swingle, Christiane Legrand (sister of Michel), Jean-Claude Briodin, Anne Germain, Claude Germaine, Jean Cussac, Claudine Meunier and Jeanette Baucomont. That album, Jazz Sebastian Bach (titled Bach's Greatest Hits in America), earned the group a Grammy award.
The novelty inherent in an eight-voice scatting choir resulted in dozens of television and radio appearances around the world during the mid-'60s. Somehow the group also managed to record follow-up LPs Going Baroque in 1964 and Anyone for Mozart? one year later. Both were Grammy winners as well. In an era when vocal choruses increasingly slipped down the easy-listening slope however, the Swingle Singers moved in precisely the opposite direction. In 1969, a subsidiary group called Swingles II premiered Sinfonia, a composition by the avant-garde composer Lucianio Berio that also utilized the New York Philharmonic.

After a move to England in 1973, Ward Swingle recruited a new Swingle Singers and changed musical direction, incorporating material from the avant-garde as well as the Renaissance era and jazz. Swingle himself retired from active performance in 1984, but continued on as music director.

Continuing until 2.00pm