Beautiful Collaboration: Gjello Improvises on his “Ubi Caritas”

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1. Gary Weidenaar says

   October 2, 2011 at 8:09 am

   A belated thanik you, Philip.  

    

   Since I’ve had multiple people express an interest in how we did what we did on this video – I thought I’d write a few words about our collaboration with Ola.  It yielded 3 videos, this one and “Northern Lights” featured Ola taking 2 of his pieces which are published unaccompanied – and improvising accompaniments on the spot to them.  (The third video is “The Ground” with string quartet and him at the piano – playing a composed piano part.)

    

   In thinking about it, this performance was different than anything I had done in that it was a situation where the choir is singing a written piece, but with an improvised accompaniment inicluded. Although that is normal fare for vocal jazz – these pieces are traditional and with a Chamber Choir.  Also, I looked at it as the singers’ interpretation of the piece trying to “mold itself” to what I heard Ola was playing.  And that is more than just rubato – I was aware of what Ola was doing the whole time – so in a sense, I felt like the choir was a pit orchestra accompanying an entity on stage (Ola), when actually he was accompanying us – but we were both kind of leaders, in a way.  At least that’s how I approached it. 

    

   We had done one or two runs at a rehearsal the day before (this was an evening session)- with greatly abbreviated solo sections.  The gameplan was as simple as this – Ola said “I’ll start, go for a bit – you come in and sing the first third of the piece – I’ll do a section solo, you sing the next third of the piece, I’ll solo again – then we’ll finish it together.” 

    

   We have now posted our version of “ubi” without Ola – from the same night, with him advising us on interpretation (for example on the last page, half the singers hum and the other half sing – at his request).  It might prove interesting for comparison’s sake – since it’s the same singers, within a half hour of the version with him at the piano.  Here’s the link:

    

   CWU Chamber – Gjeilo’s Ubi Caritas (a cappella)

    

   And one last observation:  It was definitely not a “canned” improv.  We actually did one more take, with Ola at the piano (they were both straight through, no stops, no sound edits, the only editing is camera shots) – and that accompaniment was in a “four groove” with many running eighth notes – much more busy – than this one, which is more sparse, and in a “three groove”.  We haven’t released the other video – although if there is interest, we could. . .

    

   Best, 

   Gary

    

   Gary Weidenaar

   Director – CWU Chamber Choir

    

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2. Heather Batey says

   June 25, 2011 at 5:28 pm

   This was just gorgeous!  What an incredibly beautiful musical moment.  Thank you!

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3. Valerie Crescenz says

   June 24, 2011 at 6:25 am

   Wow – this is stunningly beautiful!  Thank you for sharing.

   Valerie Crescenz

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