The Facebook Song
Breaking new ground has always been the mantra of The Australian Voices. Now one of the country’s most acclaimed vocal ensembles embraces the idiom of social media, putting the internet’s cultural powerhouse to song in a new and adventurous creation. This quirky and experiential composition expresses the contemporary phenomenon in a dynamic and serendipitous choral presentation.
In “Toy Story 3 = Awesome!”, The Australian Voices sing a song of Facebook. Composed and conducted by Artistic Director, Gordon Hamilton, this innovative newFacebook Song takes The Australian Voices where no choir has dared to go – the inner space of the internet and the unexplored and unexpected worlds of new experiences, bizarre human relationships and pop culture adoration. This journey discovers new languages and the addictive memes and viral concepts that are attaching themselves to every facet of human life.
With references to everything from Oscar nominees like Toy Story 3 and The Social Network, to emerging memes like “awkward trout” this piece is part celebration and part social commentary.
This extraordinary choral production highlights the real impact of the internet: sharing information about each other – tears and fears, what amuses us, the new meaning of friendship – all wrapped in a real-time, abbreviated cyber-speak that’s as expressive as it is exciting.
“The multiple layers of communication in social networking sites – specifically Facebook – are difficult to portray in song for an individual soloist – however, a 20-voice choir is truly able to reflect the multidimensional character of the medium” says The Australian Voices’ Artistic Director, Gordon Hamilton.
In creating this harmonically spectacular piece, Hamilton explains that while taking a deliberately playful approach to the lyrical structure, its synergy with the musical composition captures the light-speed, capricious nature and uber diversity of social networking.
“When the way we communicate with one another, and the way we express ourselves and our feelings morph words and culture into a completely new form and language, then it’s time to celebrate in song!”, says Hamilton.
Peppered with the transient and persistent ideas of the internet, or memes, “Toy Story 3 = Awesome! (The Facebook Song)” is cross-generational in a relevant portrayal of life and love in the cyber age. From rejected Friend Requests to News Feeds, Messages, Tagged Photos and Videos, this composition strikes a chord for anyone with a Facebook account in the contemporary vernacular of the medium.
While tongue-in-cheek with an ironic approach to the new Facebook wisdom permeating our everyday lives, this is a serious treatise. Filled with deeply rich moments and false recapitulations, this is four and a half minutes of sublime and surprise, farce and familiar. It embraces online conversations, slivers of intimate comment, observations and the mixed messages that accelerate virally through cyberspace.
The harmonic sophistication teases and pleases the ear. And Hamilton’s complex yet addictive compound quintuple metric pattern is surprisingly easy to sing along to. A line taken from the composition: ‘I was in a choir before Glee made it cool’, expresses self confidence in the future of the genre and renewed public interest in choral singing in this cyber age.
The recording has received many favourable comments such as Simon Carrington, co-founder, The King’s Singers saying: "This is wonderful singing, most impressive - amazing". And the director of Academy Award winning Disney-Pixar film, Toy Story 3, Lee Unkrich put the clip on his own Twitter and Facebook pages!
“Toy Story 3 = Awesome! (The Facebook Song)” is available for download on iTunes.
You can view The Australian Voices performance on YouTube. You can purchase scores suitable for your high-school or university choir HERE!.
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