[left to right: Lisa Stewart, Lisa Vincent, Sophie Moore, Dallas de Brabander, Miguel Heatwole, Michael Handy, Terry Clinton]

 

Andsome Friends is an Australian a cappella group formed in Sydney by Miguel Heatwole in 2009 to record and perform his original vocal compositions and arrangements. Miguel, Terry Clinton, and Dallas de Brabander now have equal shares in composing new material for the group. Two of Terry's pieces feature the vihuela da mano but otherwise the music is unaccompanied singing.

That singing supplies answers to some of the important philosophical questions of our time. How many medieval TV themes from popular culture may be sung simultaneously? What would Palestrina have written for the Hunters And Collectors? Is it appropriate to sing Irish slip jigs with Australian words? The songs are contemporary but there is a good measure of the past in our sound.  Our fugue about environmental waste minimisation is unashamedly Baroque.

The group has made three albums and is a good way into a fourth. The first (and our only CD) is called Colours In My Head and is described in detail here. We followed it with Lines, a collection of some of our favourite pieces to perform live, while the third album, called Unrest, is part two of Miguel's song cycle of the same name, and is [so far] largely unperformed.

Based in Sydney, the group's members have been (or still are) involved in other high-quality vocal groups: Ecopella, Song Brother, Solidarity Choir, FAMS Musical Theatre, Touchwood, Vox Humana, Cloud Ten, and the Fossickers.