Here I Stand
Eriks ESENVALDS (b.1977)
Only in Sleep [4:43]
Ola GJEILO (b.1978)
Ave Generosa [4:18]
Daniel ELDER (b.1986)
In Your Light [3:48]
365 [2:34]
Adam SCHOENBERG (b.1980)
Never Shall I Forget [9:03]
Bob CHILCOTT (b.1955)
Like a Singing Bird [4:38]
Sarah QUARTEL (b.1982)
Birds’ Lullaby [3:23]
Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
Salut Printemps [4:37]
Karen LINFORD
Here I Stand [4:59]
PinkZebra
Sing [5:09]
Andrea RAMSEY
Grow Little Tree [2:12]
iSing Silicon Valley/Jennah Delp Somers, Shane Troll
rec. 26-27 April 2020, 17-18 May 2020, First Baptist Church Palo Alto and Skywalker Studios Marin, USA
INNOVA 058 [49:26]
Physically, this is a very thin release, with less than 50 minutes music on a CD encased in a small cardboard slip. Plenty of pink, flowery imagery gives it visual appeal, while the singing of “more than 300 young female singers”, accompanied by various instrumentalists, gives it a big aural impact.
The booklet is high on embarrassingly extravagant rhetoric, but otherwise lacking in solid information. We are not told if all 300 singers are performing together on every track or whether various tracks involve smaller groups from within the iSing umbrella. The booklet does give us the sung texts, however, and short descriptive sentences on each of the pieces sung. It also tells us that these 300 singers are all drawn from four choral groups all based in California’s Silicon Valley, and it has to be said that the sound this huge choral force makes is powerful (at times overwhelmingly so), gutsy and highly disciplined. At times it verges on the aggressive; Debussy’s Salut Printemps is notable for its lack of subtlety reinforced by the pianists – Anny Cheng and Anna Khaydarova – providing very muscular support. Karen Linford’s Here I Stand and Daniel Elder’s 365 take that aggressive edge further, enhanced by beating drums and various other instrumental strands, but in both one can only commend the iSing vocalists for the glorious transparency of their diction.
There seems to be some rather abrupt editing, particularly in Gjeilo’s Ave Generosa, and generally the sound has a somewhat clinical, artificial quality, which places some of the pieces (Ešenvald’s Only In Sleep is one, Bob Chilcott’s Like a Singing Bird another) in a sort of hollow echo chamber, while others (notably Adam Schoenberg’s Never Shall I Forget) sound quite dead. This may be the result of two different recording locations, but common to all the tracks is a very forward and in-your-face sound which does the choir no real favours; it is all a little too overwhelming to be musically satisfying. Almost inevitably, the singers seem most in their element with the songs which have, what we might call, jazzy-type devices to give the performers something to keep them entertained beyond the simple act of singing words to pitches. Sarah Quartel’s Birds’ Lullaby is one of these, with some vocal rhythmic patterns which give it all a pleasing lift, even if musically it does not really do anything much. And while the uplifting message behind PinkZebra’s Sing, (described in the booklet as “a message of empowerment to iSing singers”) is delivered with great enthusiasm, it strives just a little too hard to get the message across and, somewhere along the way, we lose musical integrity.
This is a great exhibition of massed singing by young female voices, but not a disc to give either insight into the music performed or any lasting sense of musical depth.
Marc Rochester
