Ecopella – An Organism Called Earth

Ecopella – An Organism Called Earth

CD review by Ian Dearden

With 799 performances and 4 CDs under their belt, Ecopella, are a choir on a mission, with its heart on its collective sleeves!!

Founded in Sydney in 1998 by musical director, Miguel Heatwole, and now with branches in the Blue Mountains, Illawarra, Southern Highlands, Canberra and the Central Coast, they describe themselves as an ‘environmental choir’ that ‘causes harmony to the environment’ by providing ‘activists and audiences topical a cappella singing at a high standard’.

‘An Organism Called Earth’ is their debut recording, launched in 2002, and it sets a cracking standard!!

With a strictly a cappella approach to recording and performing (a little percussion creeps into their exquisite reading of Sting’s ‘Fragile’), there is nowhere to hide, and the performance is everything.

I’m delighted to report that the singing is gorgeous, the diction is superb (they are singing about a whole range of things that truly matter), the arrangements are thoughtful, engaging, and at times quite amusing and playful.

This is no po-faced choir, but real people, with loads of talent, singing songs that seek to make a difference in the world.

Their repertoire comes not only from the likes of Sting, Frankie Armstrong (‘Message from Mother Earth’), Leon Rosselson (‘Across the Hills’, ‘Sleep Well’), the Tannahill Weavers (‘Land Of Light’), Tom Lehrer (‘Pollution’), but also from talented members of the ensemble including Paul Spencer (‘Green Like Me’, ‘Make Some Music’, ‘Roads, Traffic And Authority’), Tony Eardley (‘Come Away With Me’) and Miguel Heatwole himself (‘Stand Fast’).

There’s a range of other material in there as well, and the key takeaway is the passion, enjoyment and commitment of the choir and its members, to both the music and the message.

Check out this CD and their other releases at www ecopella.org, like other live performers, they are desperate to get out gigging again, as soon as it’s safe to do so.