C3LA: The Los Angeles Choral Collective, is the third of its kind, and one of four choral collectives in the C4 Network. When I first moved to New York in 2009, I found C4, the first choral collective, and knew that I had to be a part of it. In a nutshell, these groups are a cluster of professional musicians from different backgrounds (singers, composers, and conductors) who collectively run a choral ensemble proving that the "choir dictator" model is outdated at the least. It's a fantastic and fun way to make music. When I moved to Boston, I found some interested colleagues and began Triad: Boston's Choral Collective, which is still going strong. Laurel and I were flirting with the idea of moving to Los Angeles when a friend from C4 who had recently moved to LA asked what I thought about starting another one, and that helped tip the scales on moving west.
One of the things that sets C3LA apart from the others is their interest in voice science. Not that the others weren't interested, but that one of the greatest challenges in a choral collective is determining what the sound of the group will be/can be. In the other groups, we struggled to put language to it due mostly to everyone's disparate voice training backgrounds. C3LA has enthusiastically opened themselves to the idea that voice science provides a means to create a common language around what the voice can do with new music. Oh yeah, all of the choirs in the C4 Network only perform music written in the last 25 years. The cool thing about new music is that composers have begun to understand that the voice can create so many wonderful sounds, and they are asking for those sounds to be performed. With voice science in our corner, C3LA has been able to begin to open new doors into sound creation, and the sky is the limit! This week we begin preparations for our fourth concert that will close our first full season during which we've brought 10 new pieces to the stage for the first time, and sung 30 others for the second or third time.
~David
One of the things that sets C3LA apart from the others is their interest in voice science. Not that the others weren't interested, but that one of the greatest challenges in a choral collective is determining what the sound of the group will be/can be. In the other groups, we struggled to put language to it due mostly to everyone's disparate voice training backgrounds. C3LA has enthusiastically opened themselves to the idea that voice science provides a means to create a common language around what the voice can do with new music. Oh yeah, all of the choirs in the C4 Network only perform music written in the last 25 years. The cool thing about new music is that composers have begun to understand that the voice can create so many wonderful sounds, and they are asking for those sounds to be performed. With voice science in our corner, C3LA has been able to begin to open new doors into sound creation, and the sky is the limit! This week we begin preparations for our fourth concert that will close our first full season during which we've brought 10 new pieces to the stage for the first time, and sung 30 others for the second or third time.
~David
David conducting C3LA on Nilo Alcala's
"Three Kalinga Chants" in a March, 2017 concert.
"Three Kalinga Chants" in a March, 2017 concert.
Fahad Siadat conducting C3LA on David's
"Sense/Nonsense" in a March, 2017 concert.
"Sense/Nonsense" in a March, 2017 concert.
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