MARLBORO — Northern Harmony, the unique world-music choir based in Vermont, comes to Marlboro College after their European tour for a performance on Wednesday, Nov. 8, at 7:30 p.m. in Ragle Hall.
The company of 16 singers includes Marlboro student Clayton Clemetson '19. Admission at the door is $15 for the general public and free for Marlboro students.
The singers of Northern Harmony present a 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.
Through 17 European tours since 1993, 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's performance at Marlboro is near the very end of a two-and-a-half month 2017 tour which included the UK, France, Switzerland, Italy, and the northeastern U.S. Along the way they have given workshops for schools and choirs, performed concerts, and played at ceilidhs and other traditional music gatherings.
Northern Harmony, led by Larry Gordon, 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.
The singers are primarily seasoned young graduates of Village Harmony singing programs. Most of them have studied traditional singing styles first hand with native teachers in South Africa, Bulgaria, Corsica, and Caucasus Georgia, and many are also accomplished singing leaders in their own right.
An example of the rich musical traditions tapped by this group, 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 comes both 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.
South Africa has a particularly powerful and appealing folk harmony singing tradition, with a rich, resonant vocal sound, and syncopated rhythm. The singing is always accompanied by dancing, with the rhythm of the dance movements often in counterpoint to the song.
Village Harmony has led nine study camps in South Africa and has collaborated extensively with South African singing leaders Matlakala Bopape in Polokwane and Bongani Magatyana in Capetown. Northern Harmony's program will especially feature some of Magatyana's brilliant original compositions in the folk style.
Closer to home, shape-note singing is one of Northern Harmony's trademarks, and 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 fugue-like sections, and the sacred poetry of the 18th century English hymn writer Isaac Watts and his followers.
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 fiddle, oboe, tambura, and drum.