Club for Five: Renaissance of Cappella

If you have noticed, this website is not just about firearms and gunsmithing, it is varied as are my personal interests and passions; with a drive to see reformation of our nation back to what made it a great nation - a constitutional republic. 
Like the album title and feature song of Steve Perry, I was "raised on radio" and love music. I had the opportunity to take music appreciation classes at an early age and learned accordion and organ at the basic level. I also learned to appreciate classical music, as well as other genre like bluegrass, classical jazz; but went to sleep in my youth listening to the local Rock-N-Roll station, WLS. The love of country music came from my mother's liking to it. Among those classical pieces is Christian music like the vocal chorus of monks and later as Christian music progressed the organ and piano became the accepted instrument for solo or chorus accompaniment.

Cappella is a style of music by a group of solo that is performed without instrumental accompaniment. It is an Italian word that translates to “in the manner of the church”. It became popular during the Renaissance and in the 19^th century, interest in this form of music was renewed. by Christians around the 15^th century, its early compositions were made famous by Josquin des Prez. Cappella was gradually replaced with the Cantata, retaining some of its Cappella forms.

Developed in Europe, Cappella was especially popular with Coptic Christians in the Byzantine Eastern Orthodox Church and Eastern Catholic Churches, were liturgies were sung without instrumental accompaniment. Today there are certain Christian denominations that conduct worship services without musical accompaniment, such as Presbyterian, Old Regular Baptists, Primitive Baptists, Plymouth Brethren, Churches of Christ, Old German Baptist Brethren, Byzantine Rite, Amish, Old Order Mennonites, and Conservative Mennonites. Cappella style music was primarily reserved for religious music, until ….

CAPPELLA IN 21ST CENTURY

The Club for Five is a musical group from Finland that utilizes the Cappella style to modern musical compositions. The group was founded in Helsinki in 2001. Performing mainly in Finland, they have held concerts across Europe and in Asia. The group has also performed with American vocal groups like the Manhattan Transfer and Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Their premiére in North America was at the Festival 500 in Newfoundland and Labrador in 2009. Recent albums were from their concert: You're the Voice produced by Warner Music Finland in 2010. Their first album was released in 2004. 

The members of the band are musicians with diverse and extensive musical backgrounds: Maija Sariola (soprano), Susanna Hietala (alto), Jouni Kannisto (tenor), Juha Viitala (baritone) and Tuukka Haapaniemi (bass). 

They perform in English and Finnish.

One of the popular pieces they perform is Brothers in Arms originally performed by the rock band - Dire Straits.

It is such beautifully performed music using the voice to replace musical instruments. The next presentation is Sweet Dreams [Annie Lennox and David A. Stewart]originally performed by Eurythmics.

The next presentation shows how well they mimic musical instruments vocally in performing Walk of Life also by Dire Straits. …

And last, the Club for Five perform Scandinavian traditional Christmas music entitled Joululaulu, Finnish word for Christmas Carol. ….