Concerts
Northern Harmony Quartet in Concert:
March 19 at 7:30 PM
Waverly Heights UCC Church
3300 SE Woodward in Portland, OR
Larry Gordon, Patty Cuyler, Suzannah Park, and Nathan Morrison present harmony singing traditions from throughout the world
A thrilling range of traditional harmony singing from across the world will be on offer by the vocal quartet Northern Harmony in a concert on Thursday, March 19 at 7:30 PM at Waverly Heights UCC Church, 3300 SE Woodward in Portland. Admission at the door is $12, $8 for students and seniors. For more information call (503) 351-0550.
Their unusual concert program features a wide range of singing styles: ancient sacred and secular songs from Caucasus Georgia, with a dark, sonorous sound and startling, dissonant harmonies; oral tradition songs from Corsica, featuring two highly ornamented upper voices over a harmonic bass; village and arranged songs from Bulgaria and Macedonian, using the arresting Balkan “hard voice”; lively and contrapuntal traditional and contemporary American shape-note songs; 1930’s tight harmony quartet gospel; ornamented Appalachian harmonies; South African songs and dances; and delicate medieval motets. Performing primarily a cappella, the group accompanies some numbers with accordion, banjo, guitar and keyboard.
Larry Gordon and Patty Cuyler are the founder and co-director of Vermont-based Village Harmony singing camps and the renowned touring choir Northern Harmony, and for twenty years have introduced thousands of singers to these thrilling vocal traditions. Suzannah Park and Nathan Morrison are among the most talented and charismatic of the younger generation of Village Harmony leaders, having toured and performed with Village Harmony and Northern Harmony since their early teens.
Patty is a very powerful and passionate singer with a wide range, plays accordion, and has particular expertise in Georgian, Corsican and South African music. A long time leader of shape-note singing, Larry also has expertise in medieval, renaissance and early baroque music, and his strong bass voice anchors the quartet. Coming from a family of three generations of traditional musicians, Suzannah is particularly at home in the ornamented singing styles of Appalachian music, but her rich and flexible voice shines in other genres as well. Nathan has a beautiful tenor voice and also plays banjo and keyboard.
A range of Village Harmony/Northern Harmony CDs and songbooks will be for sale at the concert.