Search - DeltaCappella, Michael Ching, Curtis Tucker :: A Midsummer Night's Dream -- opera a cappella

An opera without an orchestra? Composer Michael Ching's A Midsummer Night's Dream, uses a voicestra, an ensemble of a cappella singers, instead of instruments in the pit. As Heidi Waleson of The Wall Street Journal commented, Mr. Ching's remarkably inventive opera is a celebration of what voices can do and still, with the exception of a few startling vocal percussion effects, sound like voices. The voicestra?supports the singers on the stage, its overlapping lines and syllables weaving around them, amplifying their characters and conflicts, sometimes echoing their words (or even their thoughts), or supply atmosphere? Commissioned by DeltaCappella, a contemporary a cappella group in Memphis, Michael Ching's A Midsummer Night's Dream has the passion and finesse of classical opera, the vernacular phrasing of musical theater, and the organic voicing of contemporary a cappella, which all combine to produce a unique and powerful fusion of traditions. This is a live recording of the original cast production made in January, 2011.