Harmonia sings from ‘Sandburg Songs’ to ‘Strawberry Fields’by Mary Kunz Goldman in The Buffalo News. Read more at www.BuffaloNews.com.
The singing group Harmonia’s last concert was “rained out” – that is, cut short because of a sprinkler malfunction in the Burchfield Penney Art Center. The group has rescheduled the truncated concert for 7 p.m. Sunday. It’s a colorful program, called “Echoes of the Present” because all the arrangers are living. The music covers a lot of ground.
It includes, for instance, an arrangement of the Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever.” And a spiritual, “Down To the River To Pray,” in the arrangement by one of the King’s Singers heard in the movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”
A particularly creative arrangement by another one of the King’s Singers is also on the program. It’s “Hide and Seek,” the 2005 hit by British singer/songwriter Imogen Heap. “The arrangement is really ethereal,” said Robert Pacillo, the leader of Harmonia. Another novelty, in the true sense of the word, is “Four Sandburg Songs” by Buffalo-based composer Caroline Mallonee.