REFLECTIONS ON THE A CAPPELLA ACADEMY

BY TAHLIA WILLIAMS

The 2024 A Cappella Academy took place at UKARIA on Wednesday 12–Sunday 16 June. UKARIA’s Choral Consultant Timothy Wayne-Wright returned as Director of the Academy, which this year welcomed VOCES8 as Ensemble-in-Residence. The following story by our Communications Officer, Tahlia Williams, was born out of conversations with Tim, Barnaby Smith (Artistic Director / Countertenor, VOCES8) and Katie Jeffries-Harris (Alto, VOCES8), and reflects on the genesis, development and impact of the Academy over the past three years.

‘Creative humanity, aching beauty, the splendour of harmony speaks across all divides. The universal joy, the power of song.’
– Kirsten Duncan

The combined voices of Adelaide Chamber Singers and VOCES8 sang these words from Sally Greenaway’s Resonance as an encore to the first concert of the 2024 A Cappella Academy, and they poetically encapsulate the crux of the Academy: to bring a revelation of the joy and power of singing.

This mission belongs to Director Timothy Wayne-Wright, who launched the A Cappella Academy at UKARIA in 2022. Structured around intensive workshops with selected choirs, public workshops, open rehearsals and performances, the Academy offers a rare opportunity for singers to spend time with Tim – former countertenor of The King’s Singers. ‘The Academy’s raison d’être really is to spend time with singers,’ Tim explained. ‘For it not to be an hour slot here and there, but actually to spend an intense period. The time allows me to delve into the real minutiae of a cappella ensemble singing. It’s all about not just sowing seeds and then running away, but actually sowing seeds and seeing them grow.’

The first Academy, which was presented by UKARIA after the height of the pandemic, gave Tim the opportunity to hone its structure and ultimately its essence. Three Adelaide-based choirs were chosen to participate: Adelaide Chamber Singers (ACS) and Aurora Vocal Ensemble, both directed by Christie Anderson, and Festival Statesmen Chorus (FSC) directed by Jonathan Bligh. ‘UKARIA has shaped the Academies, for sure,’ Tim said, ‘but solely in a way that I can feel complete freedom to do exactly what I think is right to do, and not think I’m going to get shut down whichever way I turn.’ Coming out of the pandemic lockdowns, the exaltation of massed voices singing together was especially palpable. ‘The first Academy, we all went out onto the deck and sang a joint encore – a piece by Bob Chilcott that he wrote for The King’s Singers called We Are,’ Tim reflected. After it became clear that it wasn’t within physical-distancing regulations at the time to have all of the choirs singing together on stage, the idea emerged to open the glass doors. ‘We all spilled out onto the deck, so whilst people were leaving to their cars, we had this encore going. It was such a fun thing to do, and just another example of how the superlative team at UKARIA are so supportive of my artistic vision.’

The 2023 Academy presented Tim with the opportunity to invite an Ensemble-in-Residence to join Tim and the same three choirs. The Gesualdo Six (G6), who had toured to UKARIA in February 2020 and subsequently introduced Tim to the Cultural Centre, brought Renaissance, revival and regeneration to the Academy. G6 not only coached the three choirs throughout the week, but also joined Tim in presenting public workshops featuring works by their own Director, Owain Park. ‘The participants loved it because they had the very rare opportunity to work with the composer himself. The composers of so much music that we sing are dead, right? So to have the composer there saying “I didn’t want that like that, what I had in my mind when I wrote that was x, y and z”, was a very special aspect of this academy.’

The 2024 Academy marked the pinnacle of UKARIA’s three-year series, with the a cappella phenomenon VOCES8 returning to UKARIA for the first time since 2019. ‘I’ve been really looking forward to coming back,’ alto Katie Jeffries-Harris confessed with a smile. ‘It’s one of those places that sticks in your mind because it really is so unique.’ The aura of VOCES8 warmed the atmosphere at UKARIA from the very outset of the Academy; while the eight singers radiated their individual personality and proficiency, collectively they also brought something culturally and musically different to the heart of the Adelaide Hills. ‘They’ve culturally grown up singing in some of the oldest buildings in the world, singing in St George’s Chapel or St Paul’s Cathedral – and that informs your outlook and musicality,’ Tim commented. ‘But I think what they do when they tour, is they come with a fresh perspective on the music.’

When Adelaide’s featured choirs performed a showcase work for VOCES8 on the first evening, this fresh perspective was brought to light, as witty, potent discussions of storytelling, rhetoric, sound production, enunciation and virtuosity ensued. A range of works such as Tuttarana by Reena Esmail, O du stille Zeit by Simon Wawer and the heart-rending folksong Loch Lomond (arr. Jonathan Quick) exploited VOCES8’s multi-genre expertise. Barnaby Smith – countertenor and Artistic Director of VOCES8 – gave some insight into their approach to coaching choirs of such a calibre. ‘I think a lot of choirs, ourselves very much included, get into a bit of a technical bubble sometimes, so we’re doing our best to burst that, not just for the choirs we’re working with, but it also helps us reflect on ourselves as well. So trying to work a little bit more with the text, with the art of what we do; trying to understand our role as a vessel between composer and the text and the audience; and working in that way a little bit more than perhaps what people might expect, which is that we’ll come here and tune some chords and align some vowels!’

Katie further elaborated on the significance of refining the choirs’ relationship with the text. ‘As singers, you’re in a unique position compared to instrumentalists because you have text, and I think you lose so much if you’re not using that extra half of your instrument. Our job as singers so often is communicators – we’re given a piece of text that’s a beautifully crafted piece of poetry, and it would be doing it a disservice to not use it! […] And as a young singer, how to go about developing that? I think you’re developing empathy, both musically but also with the text. Something that’s fantastic about singing, and I think bringing these groups of people together, is that you have to have that shared empathy, that shared understanding and experience.’ Over the course of the five-day Academy, VOCES8 undoubtedly transformed the three choirs’ perspectives on the art of storytelling, and the results were palpable across the weekend’s three concerts. In his review of the second concert of the Academy, featuring Aurora Vocal Ensemble directed by Christie Anderson, Graham Strahle of InReview wrote, ‘Anderson’s choir had stolen the show. Barnaby Smith came to the stage and just said “Wow”. In truth, it was testimony to how much they’d gained from VOCES8 in this Academy.’

Over the course of the three Academies, Tim has had the opportunity to build a relationship with ACS, Aurora and FSC, and expressed delight at the level of development that he has witnessed over this time. ‘That’s the massively positive thing from my end: at the end of the Academy, you expect choirs to take a little step back, because they’ve been in such a pressured environment and they’ve worked so hard. But actually Christie, Jonathan and the choir members are such diligent humans and take so many notes, that together they really create this continuation of learning. […] So it’s like you’ve seen those seeds grow, but they just continue to grow and flourish when I’m not here – and that’s awesome because it means you can completely build every single time.’ Tim said this positivity and willingness to improve perfectly aligns with the heart of his Academy. ‘That’s what I’m trying to do – I’m just trying to make these choirs have more and more moments of creating beautiful art. That is the bedrock upon which the Academy is formed.’

Barnaby and Katie were also struck by the choirs’ hunger to grow and be transformed. ‘I think one thing that’s been particularly special about the choirs we’ve worked with here has been the adaptability – the ability to quickly change,’ Katie commented. ‘And something I’ve noticed that links to that is there’s an openness,’ Barnaby added. ‘I don’t notice an ego. You visit some places and people are like “we’d like to hear you tell us how great we are”, for example – but I feel here that people are very humble and very open to ideas. And we as a group need to react the same way if we’re ever going to keep getting better, and so it’s very refreshing to meet, what I feel, are open minds. […] I really think that the choirs we’ve come across here are of the highest quality compared to what we see all around the world.’

Beyond this musical excellence, the universal joy of singing was tangible throughout the Academy as singers, audiences, music teachers, community members, fans of VOCES8 and longtime supporters gathered at UKARIA. ‘Beauty, community and musicianship,’ were words that one participant in the public workshops used to describe their experience. ‘One of the earliest forms of music making is a cappella singing, so we’re using this thing that each of us has inbuilt in us to convey a message, an emotion, a story, and that’s amazingly powerful to be able to do that,’ Tim concluded. ‘It’s a very unique thing to be able to transport a message or a feeling so that it lives within someone else.’