Word: quartets
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...They're Big in Korea UNMISSABLE: Here's the Korean version of record producer Phil Spector's Wall of Sound: Big Mama, four full-figured divas who since their 2003 debut have been amply filling albums and auditoriums with their R&B-influenced vocals. The members of the quartet seemed destined for careers as backup singers until industry executives went looking for an antidote to the slinky, often marginally talented beauties churned out by the K-pop factory. "Their singing abilities were too good to pass up," says Park Hun Pyo, the group's manager. Their first two albums were...
...addition to his rock work, Williams has taken on the Kronos Quartet ("The equipment can't be merely quiet, it has to be silent") and is brainstorming ways to light the revitalized South Bank Centre on the Thames. But he still gets his greatest thrill watching people watch his work. When Williams went to a Vertigo concert with artist Julian Opie, whose minimalist figures were incorporated into the show's visuals, Opie couldn't disguise his envy. "No one," he said, "ever applauds at an art gallery." --By Josh Tyrangiel...
...That happened musically at Townsville's Australian Festival of Chamber Music in 2001, when Barton premiered Sculthorpe's revised (Ubirr) String Quartet No. 12. The composer was so impressed he went on to write other new works for Barton, whose playing he described as "summoning up the whole landscape." The musical chemistry was palpable, and the classical world soon came courting. A slew of commissions, CDs and concert tours has bulked up Barton's impressive c.v., culminating in a performance at the Cit? de la Musique in Paris last November. "I tell you, he was a superstar," reports composer...
Bennett's technique can be a little imposing. So can the presence of four guys with live instruments. When Billy Joel peers over his microphone and sees the Ralph Sharon Quartet, he says, "Live instrumentation? So if we f___ up, they got to do it again and again? Ho boy. I haven't had a drink in a year, but right now, I really want a cocktail." McGraw says simply, "Uh, I've never done this before." (He does have a cocktail.) Once a duet partner gets used to the live instruments, there's the vocal to reckon with...
...from "Because," a cappella, with extra pauses between the phrases (a space for listeners to insert their own muted "aaahs"). That tight harmony - ecclesiastical, almost angelic, in its purity - is a reminder of the Beatles' vocal virtuosity: that the moptops were, among many other things, avatars of a barbershop quartet...