posted
Sorry if I sound like a know-it-all, but I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't any confusion. The Straight No Chaser's performance of the song was great, but they were by no means the first ones to perform that arrangement. The original was written for the Notre Dame Glee Club. It's now a staple of my high school madrigal group (I believe our high school was the first to request an SATB arrangment, however), and has been around long enough that I saw the madrigals (of a different class) perform it when I was in elementary school.
The arrangement is catching on, and I'm seeing it crop up all over the place now. The first-year's men choir at my college sang it a few times, and one of my madrigal friends said that he sang it again at St. Olaf. I believe permission still has to be recieved from the arranger, but more choirs are singing it every year. Scott's review kind of made it sound like Straight No Chaser were the first ones to sing that kind of arrangement, so I just wanted to make sure people didn't think that anybody else who sang it was ripping them off.
Now that I've made a whole topic out of it, anyone else sung this arrangement (or another really cool/funny one)?
Edit: I just finished watching the video. The Dreidel part and "Christmas Down in Africa" were both new to me, so I assume that they were written by (or for) Straight No Chaser. Kudos to them.
Posts: 23 | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I sent a link to the video to a friend who is living in Africa, so he got to watch it in time for Christmas.
Posts: 454 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yeah, I saw some men's quartet doing it on PBS but it didn't have the Dreidel or Africa part, and instead seemed to spend more time on the 12 Days of Christmas. It was okay but alittle too uptight for such a fun arrangement. SNC seemed to get the humor of it well, but maybe we can blame that on them being college guys and adding Africa which I think is the icing on the cake.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
At BYU, Vocal Point, the men's a capella group, did this same arrangement, including Christmas in Africa and (I think) the Dreidel song.
Posts: 100 | Registered: Oct 2006
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
