On the eve of an important music festival, a local a cappella youth choir stepped up training to raise the roof with their sweet voices alongside some of the world's finest singers.
The 30 singers of the Hong Kong Melody Makers youth choir are performing in the month-long Hong Kong 2010 International A Cappella Festival - the city's first - that started yesterday. The event has attracted leading groups from the United States, Singapore, Japan and Sweden, One of the groups, The Real Group, a quintet from Sweden, was voted the world's best vocal group by the Contemporary A Cappella Society of America.
The Melody Makers have been making their mark since 2004, when they were established by the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups. Last year they brought home three top awards from the Third Asian Youth A Cappella Singing Competition in South Korea.
They've also done Hong Kong proud at festivals in Japan, Taiwan, the mainland and Macau.
The group practises at least once a week, but have stepped up rehearsals of a line-up of time-honoured pop classics carefully chosen for festival. They'll be collaborating on the pieces with pop sensations Khalil Fong Dai-tung and Ivana Wong Yuen-chi.
'A cappella' is an Italian term that means singing without instrumental backing. It originated from the Latin plainsongs and chants of the medieval church. Today, it denotes all genres of purely vocal music, including hip-hop, rap and beat-box. Unaccompanied singers can give music a richer sound by using their voices like instruments, for example, by mimicking the sound a drum kit produces, a technique known as vocal percussion.
