So, what are you listening to these days?

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I first discovered the gorgeous "Caledonia" by Scottish songwriter Dougie Maclean through this arrangement by Blake Morgan of English choral group Voces8. Here the group joins the St. Michael-Albertville Concert Choir of St. Michael, Minnesota for a performance of it. It is so beautiful. Blake is the tall bearded tenor and sings a short solo late in the piece.

 
And for comparison, here's the man himself, Dougie Maclean, with some help from some other singers including some familiar faces like Mary Chapin Carpenter and Martha Wainwright.

 
The theatres are still dark in the West End, but the Welsh of the West End are going strong on Youtube after almost a year. As mentioned when I have posted them before, these are Welsh singers (as opposed to Welsh-descended apes who can't sing worth s---) who normally perform the London theater district. They put this group together as part of getting themselves and their audience through the pandemic. Here they offer a cheerful, lively performance of Queen's "Somebody to Love".


And the woman who knocks it out of the park at 2:54 is Mared Williams, who has definitely caught my attention through her work in this group.
 
One of the sadder bits of music news this year has been the retirement (hopefully temporary) of Finnish bassist and singer Marko Hietala. Marko is 54 and has been in the music business in his native Finland since, I think, his teens when he started a heavy metal band with his brother. He has been best known over the past couple decades as the bassist and male vocalist (the lead singer is always a woman) of symphonic metal band Nightwish. He also frequently makes guest appearances with other bands. Just before the pandemic hit, Marko dropped his first ever solo album and managed to do some touring for it. These clips are from those shows.

First up, a cover. Black Sabbath is a seminal heavy metal band and the anti-war anthem "War Pigs" is one of their signature songs. Here Marko and his band tackle it with marvelous results.


"For You" is a Hietala original from Pyre of the Black Heart, the aforementioned solo album.


Marko's farewell letter to Nightwish expressed disillusionment and even anger with the music industry, as well as mental health issues. It also hinted at a possible return some day. Crossing fingers and wishing Marko well.

Meanwhile, Nightwish is gearing up for their first performance without him since 2001 when he replaced their original bass player. No word yet on who will be the new bassist. It is possible they will use a "temp" for this show and name a permanent replacement later.
 
When I first discovered Julia Westlin, it was through her covers. But she has mostly been releasing originals for the past while and is proving to be quite an accomplished songwriter as well as packing a lovely voice.

 
Mendalla said:
And the woman who knocks it out of the park at 2:54 is Mared Williams, who has definitely caught my attention through her work in this group.
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And today, the channel that posts the Welsh of the West End videos dropped this beauty. It's Mared singing "On My Own", which may be my favorite song from Les Miserables. All I can is, "Wow."

 
Mendalla said:
I first discovered the gorgeous "Caledonia" by Scottish songwriter Dougie Maclean through this arrangement by Blake Morgan of English choral group Voces8. Here the group joins the St. Michael-Albertville Concert Choir of St. Michael, Minnesota for a performance of it. It is so beautiful. Blake is the tall bearded tenor and sings a short solo late in the piece.

Click to expand...
More Blake Morgan. Here he teams up with with the group's first soprano Andrea Haines for their setting of an English folk song. It really highlights that as good as Voce8 are in ensemble, they are also all excellent singers in their own right.

 
A while back I discovered Japanese band Wagakki Band when they teamed up with American rock vocalist Amy Lee for both a cover of one of her songs and a song for their latest album. Been listening to their original material and they are an impressive and interesting group. The band mixes Japanese traditional instruments and musical elements with Western rock. Lead vocalist is Suzuhana Yuko and she is a terrific singer who managed to hold her own with Amy Lee, one of the most powerful voices in rock music, when they teamed up.

"Sun Wheel" really shows off the mix of traditional and modern rock well.


While "Queen of the Night" hews more to the Japanese side


And their latest is the theme for a new anime TV series


I love that they actually subtitle their videos for us non-Japanese speakers.
 
Discovered that the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Society has a Youtube channel and has a project going called Patterpalooza, in which they are releasing videos of the famous G&S patter songs with commentary from their artistic director and the performers. Back in the day, Dad was a G&S fan and the librarian I worked for in high school was involved with the K-W G&S Society, which led to me attending a few of their productions. G&S operettas were, in many ways, important ancestors of the modern musical. They are generally lighthearted, humourous plays satirizing various aspects of Victorian society and music.

First up is from Trial by Jury, which is one of the G&S plays I saw back in the day.

 
If I ever get back into roleplaying, I am so playing a magic-user based on this guy. Have not seen The Sorceror but have heard this before, I think.

 
Interestingly, the performer in that one is also the director for the series, James Mills.
 
Classical music label giant Deutsche Grammophon posted today that it is Tchaikovsky's birthday (born 181 years ago) so listening to his Violin Concerto right now. Nice performance by Julia Fischer backed by the Radio France Philharmonic.

 
In 2019, Floor Jansen of Nightwish was the winner on Dutch music show Beste Zangers (Best Singers). And I posted some clips from that upthread, I think. But apparently, she also appeared on Beste Zangers in 2012 (around the time she first sang with Nightwish) and they posted that clip yesterday as part of their Beste Zangers Songfestival.


Sadly, the reason they used the old clip was because Floor could not appear due to recent gall bladder surgery. Nightwish is doing their first concert since the pandemic hit (a virtual one) at the end of this month and the attack that put Floor in hospital happened as they were reuniting to rehearse. Apparently she had 15 gallstones, leading the band's guitar player to nickname her "Stonehenge".
 
BetteTheRed said:
Oh, dear Goddes, wouldn't she have made a great operatic contralto?
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She did some classical training at a conservatory in the Netherlands but heavy metal seems to be in her blood. Nightwish is her third band in the genre, including one that she started herself.
 
One side of Floor that we don't hear much these days is her writing. Keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen does most of the writing for Nightwish with only occasional contributions from other band members.

However, in the latter days of her time with the Dutch band After Forever (which launched her career) and in her own band ReVamp, Floor was, in fact, a songwriter.

I just discovered this old After Forever song that Floor wrote for her mother, who struggled with pain from a rare arthritis. This performance is from a solo tour she did in The Netherlands after her appearance on Beste Zangers in 2019 (probably her last live performances before the lockdown since Nightwish was on a break waiting for a new album to drop) and her backup band is the band from the show.


From the same performance, another After Forever era song. This one, and all the songs on the album it originally appeared on, features lyrics by Floor with music by the band's lead guitar and co-founder Sander Gommans.

 
From the same show, one of the most popular songs of Floor's tenure in Nightwish. It's a lively song that gets audiences bouncing (as you can hear). It's a bit softer here than with Nightwish but still has tons of energy to spare.

 
New NPR Tiny Desk concert from Lake Street Dive came out and I somehow missed it until today. A great performance of four songs from their latest album. Rachael Price and Akie Bermiss are in top form on vocals and the band sounds terrific overall.


Sadly, we learned a week ago that Mike "McDuck" Olson, the guitarist and occasional trumpeter, is leaving after playing some gigs in May and June. He co-founded the band along with drummer Mike Calabrese, Rachael, and bassist Bridget Kearney, all graduates of the New England Conservatory of Music.
 
The marvelous, amazing, stunning, incredible (okay, that's enough adjectives) singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles has dropped an album of her 2019 concert at the Hollywood Bowl on the tour for the album Amidst the Chaos. She has released many of the tracks as audio only on Youtube (I will link the playlist at the end) but today she put out the first full video. And it's her classic anthem Brave. I do not think it is possible for Sara to do a bad version of this song. I've heard her do it solo on piano and with a full symphony orchestra and it never fails to stir. This one kind of splits the difference, with a band and a few strings.


And, as promised, the playlist. It's a mix of material from Amidst the Chaos, songs from Waitress (the musical for which Sara was the songwriter), and her older hits like "Brave" and "Gravity".

 
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