The Swingles Celebrate National Coming Out Day

Since 1962, the world has been in awe of The Swingles’ innovating talent, bushing the boundaries of the capabilities of the human voice.  In honor of National Coming Out Day 2020, five-time Grammy-award winning vocal group The Swingles are releasing a new music video of the classic “Hallelujah I Love Him So” by Ray Charles. This is the first time the group has openly changed pronouns, deliberately honoring and reflecting the sexual orientation of current members. The soloist, Jon Smith, is an openly gayman and has changed the pronouns to “him,” with the full support and encouragement from the group.

The group first sang this version of the song for a wedding of close friends and then publicly debuted the arrangement at Robbie Scott’s Jazz Club in 2019. In their August performance at the Live from London festival, Smith enhanced his soulful performance with flamboyance and the epic use of a rainbow fan, eliciting a flood of comments on the livestream consisting of combinations of “Yaaaasss” and rainbow emojis allover the screen. Even more powerful were the messages that followed. LGBTQ+ fans and supporters around the world posted pictures and sent messages regarding the event and how amazing it was to see the LGBTQ community represented on a global stage.

As always, The Swingles put on an amazing, authentic and historic performance. Enjoy!

 

Polyphony Episode 7: Pandemic Impact on International Groups

This week on Polyphony, we head overseas to hear about how the pandemic is affecting some of our international groups. Aaron and Rachael sit down with Peter Huang of MICappella, Jon Smith of The Swingles, and Lorenzo Subrizi of Rebel Bit for a global perspective of the shutdown.
Hear it first tonight at 5 pm Pacific/8 pm Eastern. Podcast available later in the week!

Vocal HERspective Episode 29 – Jo Eteson

This week on Vocal HERspective, we’re sitting down with Jo Eteson, longtime soprano of The Swingles. We could elaborate for hours about her talent and experience, but we’ll just leave it at: she is a living legend. And an incredibly kind and generous legend at that.

Don’t miss Episode 29 tonight at 9:30 pm EST/6:30 pm PST. It will re-air on Sunday at 10:30 am/pm PST and go live on all podcast networks on Monday.