The Tea Party will keep their songs true to the original arrangements when they perform orchestra shows in Sydney and Melbourne this month.
The Tea Party will do two shows with orchestras, with the Sydney Youth Orchestra and with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
“One thing that benefited us was that we embraced the studio as an instrument,” The Tea Party’s Stuart Chatwood tells Noise11.com. “We were firmly planted in the world of overdubbing and multiple tracking. What that means is that the songs have minute little melodies to extrapolate and make them larger. We can pull things out or throw them to the flute or have some of the percussion elements to the trombones”.
Stuart was not a fan of the Kiss symphony show, also recorded in Australia. “With some shows, and I don’t want to badmouth Kiss for example, but it is sometimes up to the conductor to imagine new melodies to add to the songs,” he said. “When we orchestrated this we pulled out elements that were there already. It is very faithful in a way full of integrity”.
Acclaimed Canadian conductor, Marc Ouellette, will work with The Tea Party on the two Australian shows. “He hooked up with us for the first show,” Stuart said. “He stayed at my apartment in Montreal. Me, not being an arranger, I was just singing parts to him and he just wrote it down. I tried to give him a direction. He then went off and scored everything. We added a few more songs to the score. Now we’ve added four more for these shows in Sydney and Melbourne”.
The Tea Party in Australia
21 April, Sydney, Star Events Centre (with Sydney Youth Orchestra)
28 April, Melbourne, Hamer Hall (with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra)
