Of all the border-crossing musical combinations, the one that doesn’t seem to be that much in focus these days is the one between classical music and pop. Strangely enough, artists that pursue such a combination like violinist Vanessa-Mae have had such huge success.
The reason for this may lie in the fact that such a combination needs excellent classical music skills and at least a very good sense of pop music to make it work effectively.
Still, this need for musical excellence and melody sense did not deter Vancouver’s Black Dog String Quartet, as they pursue to refine this to some strange musical hybrid on their latest album A Thousand Times Brighter.
Elyse Jacobson, violin, Molly MacKinnon, violin, John Kastelic, viola, and Doug Gorkoff, cello are joined here by John Kastelic, Chelsea Rose, and Naomi Kavka who handle the vocals.
Of course, the whole thing could have been a futile exercise if it relied only on the excellent instrumental skills of the quartet, of which there is abundance here or just letting the singers handle the melody parts, which they actually due admirably.
What ties everything together is the depth of emotional involvement of both the players and singers, an involvement which gained more weight after the recording itself, as the Quartet’s producer/engineer, Olivia Quan, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly of natural causes at just 25 years old. She had nearly finished mixing the album at the time – the final adjustments were done by her colleague, Tom Dobrzanski.
