Scala & Kolacny Brothers: Press

Sure, all the kids love Glee, but well before New Directions was even a twinkle in Ryan Murphy’s eye, a couple of Belgian brothers had already taken show choir to its logical, foundation-shaking conclusion, Way back in 1996, conductor Stijn Kolacny and his brother, pianist/arranger Steven Kolacny, formed Scala & Kolacny Brothers, a 60 piece female chamber choir whose repertoire focused largely on choral arrangements of indie rock faves. Not as creepy as Sabbath Assembly or The Langley School project, nor as schlocky as the aging hipster music teacher willing a group of disinterested tweens through the songbook of his/her salad years. Ironically, German industrial metal act Rammstein liked Scala’s take on their song Engel so much, that the choir’s version was included on Rammstein’s live album, 2006’s Völkerball.
 

Circle, the ensemble’s 9th record will finally be released stateside this Fall
(…)
A deluxe version of Circle contains a second CD of original Kolacny brothers compositions, which though unfamiliar, frequently surpass the covers in terms of emotional load.
(…)

by Tony Sclafani

Imagine dozens of young girls wrapping their voices around tunes by Metallica, Kings of Leon, Peter Gabriel and Nirvana. Well, you've just imagined the new Scala & Kolacny Brothers record "Circle."
(…)
This isn't the a cappella stuff Ben Folds was into, but rather, a much more refined version of what your middle school choir probably sounded like.
(…)
They bring a convincing mournfulness to Kings of Leon's "Use Somebody," and make Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill" sound jauntier than he probably ever intended
(…)

By Jim Allen

Somehow, back when The Polyphonic Spree started getting big, we knew it would eventually lead to something along these lines. If you can imagine an alternate-universe version of the Langley Schools Music Project, where the source material is contemporary and the skill level of the singers and arrangements are stepped up several notches, you might have a pretty good entry point into the work of Scala & Kolacny Brothers.
 

Scala is a choir made up of 60 Belgian girls, conducted by Stijn Kolacny and accompanied on piano by arranger Steven Kolacny. They started back in 1996, actually, so the Polyphonic Spree crack isn’t really fitting, chronologically. They’ve spent the last bunch of years perfecting their choral versions of rock songs (Hey, how come Ray Davies didn’t tap them for his recent album of choral Kinks tunes?), and now they’re getting set to unleash Circle.
 

The album finds Scala lifting their luminous voices to the tune of everything from Britpop classics like the Oasis anthem “Champagne Supernova” to such feel-bad ’90s alt-rock gems as Radiohead’s breakthrough hit “Creep” and Nirvana’s “Lithium.” They enter into a bit more of a contemporary realm too, bringing a choral sheen to Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” and Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody.”
 

The thing is, once you get past the initial novelty factor, which can’t realistically be denied, this stuff sounds genuinely gorgeous and sometimes downright haunting. Start listening now, before all the hip producers begin bringing them in for guest shots on pop records, and their cred is blown.

It’s Now Or Never For Scala
Concert in Brugge recorded live for the American television

By Peter Vantyghem, De Standaard

Those who had a ticket for the concert of the Scala girl choir at the Concertgebouw in Bruges were promised a few seconds of celebrity on the American television. Everyone was found ready to give extra applause in exchange for this.

Each concert has its rituals. At the Antwerp ‘Sportpaleis’ you have to pass Nadar barriers and to be body-searched. At the Brussels opera wearing the proper outfit is a must. At the entrance of the Bruges concert hall everyone is warned that by entering the venue you irrevocably grant Scala and the producers the universal rights of your appearing on or in any media.

This evening is crucial for Scala, the female choir from Aarschot, that impressed ten years ago with its choir versions of rock songs. In the meantime it has slowly/gently but firmly worked its way to the international music scene.

After some commercial adventures in France, Japan and Germany, Scala currently works with a Canadian team to record a TV special for the American public television network PBS. The project is huge! The one-hour show will be broadcast in all the American states. The number of viewers can hardly be estimated - some say fifty million - but for the choir, this means 'now or never'.

One man though is certain to be successful tonight because of his job. Jo Declercq, known in Flanders as Jo with the Banjo or Banjo Jo, is the evening’s warm-up presentator. He promised an ‘unforgettable evening’, made us try several kinds of applause, revealed that a few candid cameras are on, and calms down everyone by saying that anything going wrong will be recorded again.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is television!”

The message has passed. Thundering applause when Steven and Stijn Kolacny appear on stage - let’s show the Americans how big Scala is over here! Steven, the elder borther, wears his usual rock outfit. Stijn, the younger one, is dressed more classically. Nineteen young women follow, tastefully dressed in various shades of grey. Nothing is being left to chance.

While 'Every breath you take' sounds through the concert hall, the set of Olivier Dufour, the director of the show, unfolds and reveals its secrets. A huge and wide curtain bathes the choir in the atmosphere of a bedroom: pictures from movies and a subtle lighting caress the young women whose number keeps increasing with each song. With ‘Seashell’ the girls seem to be part of an underwater ballet.

Scala is oxygen. Scala is elementary. The images of earth, wind and water will play the whole evening with everyone’s unconscious and leave no one in the uncertainty that this kind of music, this choir, these women, are purifying.

Highlights follow each other. During the long sigh which Michael Bojesen’s 'Evigheden' is, another full choir strolls down the concert hall to end on stage, turning Scala suddenly into a choir of 60 girls (aged between 18 and 33). 'It will never come back' gets a rougher rock accompaniment which the song admirably supports. And the evergreen 'California dreamin' glows melancholically in a minor key: beautiful.

There are also guest, that’s part of the PBS-deal. The British Faryl Smith is fourteen, which hardly no one can believe. She sang in the final of Britain's got talent and is being prepared for universal celebrity. She is bringing songs of Dusty Springfield and Roberta Flack in opera style and sounds majestatic.

The show director has solutions for everything. The choir has to be moving continually. With 'Black horse and the cherry tree' the girls even perform a stylish choreography. The four additional drums make the whole an easy to remember song. Anyhow, this song is a turning point for Scala.

The performance has to be interrupted several times. Banjo Jo jumps on the stage to keep the audience connected. Smith and a Canadian singer, Mark Masri, together bring 'Bridge over troubled water': a prudent choice with Scala as a wall-paper. 'With or without you' is a sweet revenge: the choir literally blows the duo away.

One and a half hour later the show is over. Standing ovation, the Kolacny’s are radiant. Next is the reception. In fact we are only half-way. Banjo Jo allows a sanitary stop and urges everyone to come back quickly.

This part is a succession of ‘national’ performances. Six songs in Dutch for the Flemish television VRT. Three songs of Pierre Rapsat for RTBF, the Belgian French-speaking television. Six songs for the German television. Let’s quickly record 'Nothing else matters' again, there was a sound problem! The audience is admirable, cheering after each song and even doing the standing ovation all over again!

The Kolacny's look tired at the cocktail reception, but they are dragged in a whirlpool. These moments are theirs. In August, Scala could be hot in America. 'Let’s be realistic', says Steven Kolacny. 'We’ll never get such an opportuntiy again, anywhere.'

The show will be broadcast on the RTBF on 5th June and on VRT Eén on the 11th July.

The new CD 'Circle' will be released on 29th May.

...The two thousand tickets for the Scala & Kolacny Brothers live concert in Hasselt were sold in no time. Those who attended the performance got what they expected for Scala has lost its hyped 'girl choir going hard rock' image to become a genuine professional act.

... The audience listened to several interpretations that were more sophisticated than the covers Scala used to bring in its early Scala- On-The-Rocks period.

... The choir and its forty-five 18+ girls have changed into a choir that undoubtedly gained maturity.

Free translation of article excerpts of the daily 'Het Belang van Limburg', 23rd October 2007

Scala on the Rocks: A Triumph by Youth for Youth

...
It was an unforgettable evening of music-making with the choir wonderfully
conducted by co-founder Stijn Kolacny and many of the pieces accompanied by
his brother and fellow co-founder Steven on the piano. ...

...
This was one of the most remarkable musical occasions ever witnessed in the City Hall.
...

Every time it seemed the singing couldn't get any better, it did. ...

There were two standing ovations" one at the official end of the programme and the second after the encore Hats off to John Fitzpatrick for bringing this Belgian youth choir to Cork. ...

The dynamism created by the Kolacny Brothers translated into the choir’s sublime singing, sense of fun and all-round expertise. Scala have set a marker for Irish youth choirs. ...

Source: Extracts from an article in Cork Evening Echo, 28.04.2006

by Bart Steenhaut

Admittedly, it's neither a new idea nor something that will likely lead more people to listen to Classical Music: Singing popular Rock and Pop songs with a Choir is actually the ultimate and earliest form of Cross-Over. But then again, education was probably the last thing on the Kolacny brother's mind when they founded "Scala".

Instead, they were driven by disappointment of the state of the Belgian Choir scene as well as a desire to present

© Alex Vanhee 

http://www.mouvement-nouveau.com/newsitems/rockchoirexperience

by Bart Steenhaut

SUCCESS IS LIKE AN OLD FRIEND WHO SUDDENLY TAPS YOU ON THE shoulder after many years: you weren’t expecting it and that’s precisely what makes it all the better. And Scala knows just how that feels. Things have been going well for the girls’ choir from Aarschot since 2002. They have already annexed Belgium, France and Germany and have had a number of successful tours in Canada and more recently at the World Fair in Japan. And when the new CD comes off the press their sights will turn on Switzerland and Austria.

© Leon Auwers 

“A youth choir tends to conjure up images of boredom, church music, and discipline that verges on the military. But Scala is proof that it doesn’t have to be like that.”

Article by Bart Steenhaut *.pdf

By Sean Thomas

A few months ago, much to Scala's own astonishment, The Guardian published an article by Sean Thomas. We just want to share Mr. Thomas with our fans
I touch Myself by the Divinyls, a gloriously sleazy 80s single, is hardly an obvious choice of material for a chorus of teenage Belgian maidens. But that's the kind of song the Scala choir chooses to cover. Even more surprisingly, in their innocent mouths it becomes a spiritual psychodrama of quite unsettling power.

... the girls started performing pop songs, both standard and obscure. As Scala aficionados know, there are few things as electrifying as a chorus of wide-eyed sixth-formers sweetly enunciating, as if it were Verdi's Requiem, the words "her boyfriend's a dick, he brings a gun to school" (from Wheatus's Teenage Dirtbag.

Since then, Scala have attained cult status, much of it via the internet. Their shows are sold out; their albums of cover versions (like Scala on the Rocks) have done well in France and the Benelux countries; ... .

... Just listen to the Scala choir mixing Bach and blatant lunacy on their version of Radiohead's Creep.

Source: Extracts from an article of Sean Thomas - The Guardian, Wednesday June 8, 2005

By Peter Vantyghem

The youth choir from the Belgian town of Aarschot and the surrounding Flemish region sings rock and pop songs on its ‘Scala on the rocks’ album. Commencing 26 September, they will be on tour in a large number of community & cultural centres, where they are bound to attract a broad and young audience. This will undoubtedly lead to a double benefit: a new generation will find its way to the cultural centres and, in no time, the image of Flemish choir life will be rejuvenated.

Scala is conducted by the two brothers Steven and Stijn Kolacny. Both are highly talented and widely acclaimed pianists. They founded Scala in April 1996. A few years later, they succeeded in making the choir one of Belgium’s – and even of Europe’s – best vocal music ensembles. They performed, up till now, a mainly classic repertoire.

‘Scala on the rocks’, however, is a totally different sound. Both brothers realized that their girls’ choir, although successful, was singing a repertoire that didn’t match the girls’ living environment. So why not sing songs that the girls knew, and liked? Songs by Garbage, Nirvana, Wheatus and even those of Kylie Minogue and The Police. Or of the Flemish pop groups, Noordkaap and K's Choice.

Last autumn, the choir did a concert with a wholly pop programme at the Lowlands festival in the Netherlands, which was a real step in the dark for them. They needn’t have worried though. The rock audience listened willingly, sang along with them and embraced the project, which had been conceived at the request of the ‘Festival van Vlaanderen’. After that, Scala pre-booked a few theatres in Flanders in the hope that this new niche market would take off for them.

What followed is quite an accomplishment in Flemish music history. A first concert in Ghent was a sell-out and, suddenly, the two Kolacnys were hot media items. Record companies jostled for contracts; they’d made it to the big time… Given this massive wave of media interest, they decided not to wait any longer to record a CD. Scala recorded a few live concerts, the highlights of which became ’Scala on the rocks’, released on the PiaS label.

But it didn’t stop there... The Kolacnys received several requests from other youth choirs, which wanted to receive the scores. Because Scala singing pop songs well, that was something else! Rock radio station Studio Brussels played the CD, television station TMF broadcast a recording from a live concert and, to the astonishment of many a music critic, pop-pickers everywhere reacted very positively. Puritan reactions about an alleged loss of dynamics in the songs were negligible.

Obviously, all this raises further questions. Can Scala play a pioneering role in this new trend? Can the Flemish choirs still use Scala from the centre of Flanders as their choir to benchmark against, while it is slowly creaming central Belgium’s best voices?

Possibly. Scala is, after all, unique. The choir rehearses intensely (5.5 hours a week), it has young and charismatic leaders and it is well coached by parents and sympathisers. The group is big enough to alternate its line-up, on a long tour, and thus maintain a strong stage presence. In addition, Stijn and Steven Kolacny are also smart businessmen who have a panache for communicating with the media. It goes without saying that, musically, they are very talented.

But all of this would not be enough if it were not for the valid contention that pop songs, even more than classical songs, come to life with a full-throated, lyrical interpretation. Pop music does not need complex chords or harmonic finesse, but rather a common bond between a performer and his audience. When the audience has genuine empathy for the performer, dreams comes true!

Source: ‘De Standaard’ newspaper