Hexaphone

Come Saturday night, things will get pretty darned hexy at Lutheran Church of the Cross. That’s when Hexaphone performs its Hex and the City concert. Expect music by Cole Porter, Brahms and selections from Jaakko Mäntyjärvi’s Shakespearean songs cycle.

Hexaphone is Victoria’s sole six-member a cappella vocal group. In fact, it’s the only professional-level a cappella sextet in Canada. (Or at least, that’s what a director from the Canadian Music Centre maintained.) Paul Boughen, a Victoria physician and Hexaphone’s bass singer, is leery of making such an absolute claim. “I think we can claim to be the only steadily performing vocal sextet in Canada,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t know of any others.”

In the music world, vocal groups that specialize in a cappella — singing unaccompanied by musical instruments — are not very common. A few pop a cappella groups, such as the Nylons and Naturally 7, have become well known. Of late, the style has become popular enough to have spawned an NBC reality show, The Sing-Off. In the classical world, the most famous a cappella act is the long-running King’s Singers, a sextet that became an international sensation and performed on The Johnny Carson Show.

Hexaphone has yet to match the King’s Singers’ fame. But the group, now in its 10th season, has enjoyed its share of success. Hexaphone has premièred works by such notable Canadian composers as Rodney Sharman and Linda Catlin. They’ve performed for the Victoria Symphony’s New Currents Festival of Music and the Voice++ Festival at Open Space. In 2008, Hexaphone was selected to give the premier performance of B.C. 150 Project: Five Songs for British Columbia, commissioned by the Canadian Music Centre to celebrate the 150th birthday of the colony of British Columbia.

The members all have extensive classical vocal training, something that’s reflected in their precise, tonally balanced sound. Boughen, who oversees the ensemble’s vocal arrangements, started off his musical life hoping to become a professional pianist. He’s sung with many groups, including the CapriCCio Vocal Ensemble as both a chorister and a soloist. Hexaphone appeals to him because, in many respects, it demands more of singers than a choir. In a large ensemble, it’s possible to disappear within the crowd. Not so in a small group, in which each voice is clearly audible.

“The group is really about solo singers who are joining together to do group work. It’s more chamber work than choir work,” Boughen said. Each week the members of Hexaphone rehearse in a church. When gigs loom, that steps up to twice a week. They do not use microphones. “It’s incredible. We make a lot of noise for six people. If we want to, we can fill a hall quite readily.”

Regular singing is said to exercise muscles in the upper body and improve the efficiency of the cardiovascular system. As a family-practice doctor, Boughen is well aware of the side benefits of his hobby. “It’s a healthy pursuit. You have to be in good shape to sing properly,” he said.

“One of the highlights of my week is to sing for two hours, rehearsing. It’s relaxing. It’s invigorating. It’s all of those things.”

© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist

We six headed up-island on January 22 as guests of St. Michael’s Chemainus Classical Concert series. It was a stormy start with torrential rain, a tree down on the highway, dying cellphones hampering communication between cars, and bold decisions to reroute our journey through some dubious backroads to get through Goldstream Park and onto the Malahat. But such minor inconveniences are just part of the thrill for Hexaphone! We arrived at the performance with minutes to spare and made the curtain. It was a lovely old church to sing in — and always a pleasure to sing to a full house and appreciative audience. Best of all, it gave us a chance to properly baptize Ian and Hannah as full fledged Hexaphonists! Ian’s solo in O My Love is Like A Red, Red Rose was so beautiful, a soprano could be forgiven for losing her concentration and flubbing an occasional note (the score is only a guide, after all). We have worked hard towards building the ensemble since our first rehearsals together in October. Just wait until Saturday, Victoria!

Perhaps it’s appropriate the one concert before our tour of the Interior is on the theme of travel! Our performance of Nicholas’s “Gare de Montréal” — which was our second reading of this work — felt more relaxed and assured than our first encounter with it six years ago. I think such room to grow and take root is what these compositions need, and we were so very fortunate to perform it with group of expressive instrumentalists. That first-half fare was followed by a second half with of our more usual fare. Much of these closer harmony pieces will be taken on the road to Penticton and Kelowna. And some last words about the audience: they were wonderful, in turns both attentive and supportive. With so much going on in one evening here in Victoria, we were happy to see such engaged and smiling faces.  Thank you for being there!

We had a great time singing last night at Government House for the 100th anniversary of the Alliance Francaise.
It was a beautiful room to sing in, and a fantastic audience. I think it really helps when the Lt. Governor starts a standing ovation. I suspect protocol dictates all others in the room must stand as well! Nevertheless, he was very kind – it was a real treat to meet him afterwards. And helpful that he is addressed as ‘His Honour.’ Couldn’t remember his name for the life of me!

It also was a gratifying experience singing a program of french for french speakers. For me, it reawakened that unresolved problem of the language barrier in recital. So much great music in other languages to explore, but so much seems lost when those listening can’t totally understand the text. Hmmmm… anyone feel like running surtitles?

Just having a coffee and casting my mind back to last Saturday’s performance. I really enjoyed that concert – truly wish we were doing it all over again this weekend. It’s not every Hex concert I am permitted to blow my nose in the middle of Paul’s solo. We had so much fun pulling that rep together- I think Arlene and I were born to sing sing back-up while Mike and John wailed out Back In The USSR. It was good to see so many familiar faces in the audiences, and so many kids. Some young friends of mine reckoned ‘I Know An Old Lady’ was their favourite piece, but I have a hunch it was more about seeing the men in drag than the actual song! Does anyone have a photo of Nick in his Little Old Lady bonnet?

Well, we’re on to things of a slightly more weighty nature in rehearsals now. Had a great work out on Soir de Neige for the Alliance Francaise event at Govt. House Dec 3. Great to come back to the Poulenc after some time away from it. Still chasing that elusive pianissimo high b flat. My poor neighbours!

Last week on Friday we had a chance to try out some new repertoire on an audience at Shannon Oaks. We are having fun with lots of the material, especially such things as the “Humpty Dumpty Medley” and some jazz arrangements of tunes from the “Wizard of Oz”. Hopefully we can ham it up for our audience in a few weeks time — kids love a good story!

At long last we have finished a major redevelopment of our website. As we get used to working with the WordPress system we’ll start turning on more features of the site. For example, many of you have expressed an interest in sharing with us your feedback in a way other than e-mail, and the WordPress commenting system will be excellent for this. As another example, some of us will blog from time to time to share our progress with new material, planning for concerts, ideas for the future, etc. And much more, including media such as audio and video. We don’t promise to become slavish devotees of Twitter (!) yet we hope our revamped site will get to you news of our doings (and comings and goings) much faster and more reliably. And thanks muchly to the folks at Islandnet.com for providing excellent and trouble-free web-hosting service.