BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Imagine you’re in a music history lecture where you receive your entire education through live comedy and song.
That’s what Nick Begbie says you should expect from his Australian premiere performance of Harmonic Histrionic.
Singing with The Idea of North — the ARIA-winning group he founded — this tenor will lead audiences through five centuries of song, from baroque to actual rock.
The show promises plenty of fun, and it’s live in Hobart at the Festival of Voices this week.
(Okay, and it’s in Sydney next month, for those of you on the mainland who just started feeling jealous…)
Nick, I was reading about you and that you don’t have a formal qualification in music — but you’ve gone out and smashed it all anyway. I love this. How has your absence of academic vocal study fuelled your natural passion for music?
This is a fascinating question, and a difficult one to answer.
In short, I don’t think my lack of formal qualification had any part in fuelling my passion for music — I think that happened as a direct result of growing up in a musical family, and then finding my ‘tribe’ in other harmony singers.
I believe one of the great things about The Idea of North is how different our musical backgrounds are. I bring to the musical side of the group a relatively unlearned perspective — one that is grounded in ‘feel’ rather than ‘knowledge’, and I think that complements all the group’s other ridiculously clever musicians and their perspectives.
We have struck a great balance — Naomi Crellin (alto) and Luke Thompson (bass) do most of the arranging, and then the rest of us make impassioned suggestions about how arrangements may be improved.
So, you founded The Idea of North. What was said ‘idea’?
The idea, initially, was to have fun singing together, and to create original arrangements of songs we loved, without the need for instruments.
The load out is easy, the lug is easy, but not having fixed pitch instruments to guide you is really difficult.
Over the years, our mission has broadened, and we now strive to give our audiences an amazing experience, full of a variety of emotions, and not let the fact that we have no instruments distract them from the beautiful music they’re hearing.
If an arrangement comes to the group and it is too ‘a cappella-y’ — ie. the lack of instruments is apparent — then it is swiftly rejected. We have folders of these arrangements that no one will ever hear!
You’ve received a whole heap of acclaim, including ARIA success. And this strikes me as particularly impressive when knowing your group performs across a vast range of musical styles. From baroque to actual rock, how do you manage such vocal flexibility?
I think the eclectic make-up of the group members’ personalities and their tastes in music have created a band that embraces many styles of music.
A cappella is actually only a description of our instrumentation, so we like to explore as many genres as we believe we can make work effectively with the instrumentation we have. Obviously, we also need to actually like the genres we perform, so we’ve not yet delved into death metal or electronica — these are quite hard to make work in a cappella, even if we had actually wanted to attempt them.
In terms of vocal flexibility, given that we are a band comprised of five of the world’s most sonically versatile instruments — the human voice — it’s a matter of experimentation, of exploration, and of education. For us to learn what it takes to perform in many different styles, we’ve needed to be creative, learn from others, and delve into genres and compositions that we wouldn’t have immediately thought would work.
There are so many cultural clashes in the music industry, particularly between classical and…well, everything else. Who is your audience, and how do you unite your listeners and avoid prejudices that arise between jazz, pop, rock, and classical styles — each so often claiming musical superiority?
Our audience has always been very broad, which has made it particularly difficult to focus our marketing. The mixture of jazz, pop, comedy, and folk music appeals to a wide range of people. But I believe one of the greatest appeals of TION is not the genres we sing, but our focus on bringing the stories of the songs alive, making them accessible, and ultimately affecting for the listener.
In terms of the prejudices people feel about different genres, I think one way to distract people from their prejudices is to bring whatever music they’re hearing alive for them, because prejudices often arise because of what moves us. Another way is to combine and ‘mash up’ the genres, so that people aren’t quite sure what genre they’re listening to. Combine these successfully, and you will have an audience experiencing the music, not just hearing it — and experiencing a music of a not-altogether-clearly defined genre.
One of the greatest compliments we’ve ever had — and we’ve had it on multiple occasions — is: ‘I don’t like a cappella, and I don’t like jazz, but that was incredible, whatever that was!’
In your Festival of Voices show, you’ll be doing it all. Talk us through the style of the show — will it be a chronological history of vocal music?
Imagine you’re really into music history. Then imagine you’re in a lecture with a hilarious and engaging professor who is taking you through the history of vocal harmony from the 15th Century to now: who was singing it; what it sounded like; which harmonies and styles were popular, and when.
Then imagine each time they describe a style of vocal harmony, they look up a classic example of it on Spotify to play, but instead of a recording, a group of musicians from that time materialises right there in the lecture theatre and gives you a live, in-person example of the music from their age/time.
Then imagine being so entranced by the lecture that you get a high distinction on your exam.
It’ll be kind of like that.
What went into the choice of works? After all, it must be tough to pick from about 500 years of music!
Repertoire selection was tricky. We wanted to strike a good balance between ‘popular’ or well-known pieces that may be familiar to some people, and interesting examples of styles that people may not have heard, all the while making sure the pieces contrasted enough to highlight the changes in trends, and making sure the show wasn’t overrun with ballads — a lovely style for vocal harmony.
For the most part, we have our truly incredible MD and chief arranger Naomi to thank for the repertoire, except for one song that was ingeniously suggested by my sister (thanks, Bex!).
What do you hope listeners will take away from the show?
A CD or two.
Just kidding. As with all our concerts, we hope the audience walks away feeling as though they know the five people on stage a little better; having been moved to laughter, and possibly even to tears; having enjoyed music that doesn’t usually make the cut for their carefully curated Spotify playlists; and, specific to this show, having learnt a whole bunch about the history of vocal harmony!
Oh — and hopefully they’ll also walk away with a burning desire to return to Festival of Voices year in and year out!
The Idea of North will perform Harmonic Histrionic at Hobart’s Theatre Royal, 10 July, as part of the Festival of Voices. Stay tuned for our review!
This show will later be performed at the City Recital Hall, 8 August.
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If you like, you can give thanks to Stephanie for volunteering her time for Australian arts journalism. No amount too much or little 🙂
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