CIMH cover small.jpg

The first track on this album takes me wistfully back in time. My arrangement of Throw Your Arms Around Me had lain unsung for six years until a group of friends agreed to perform it with me at a concert I organised in July 1999. With characteristic flair for self promotion I shortened our original name ‘Miguel Heatwole And Some Friends’ to its two-word form before we took the stage. 

Later that year we premiered another rockapella arrangement, Can’t Stand Losin' You, but then I spent the next decade establishing the activist choir Ecopella, while channelling my composition of art music into a song-cycle called Unrest, eventually recording it with the Song Company. So far, one track from that project has made it into Andsome's repertoire: a celebration of power napping called Rest.

In 2009, I restarted Andsome Friends and was delighted to have one of the groups original members involved. Terry Clinton’s compositions are charmingly poetic and very popular with us. They frequently explore the idea of Change.

Our primary goal has been to record the album you are now holding. I selected Colours In My Head as the title track as much for the cover art it suggested as for its cerebral and philosophical lyrics.

A cappella mash-ups are a particular interest of mine, and here I interweave selected screen music from shows that entertained my childhood and youth. Swing A Cat is a collection of feline cartoons I liked in the 1960s, while Heroes Of Olde takes a medieval theme.

A couple mates of mine are gifted songwriters, and from each I chose a work that I knew would work well with unaccompanied voices. Although contemporary, Russell Neal's Bright Moon effortlessly captures a romantic mood of the mid-twentieth century. Clark Gormley might prefer not to talk about it, but his comic genius is the Elephant In The Room.

Your heffalump is supposedly afraid of rodents so perhaps a spirited rendition of The Rat Is Round might clear the room? And while we're rounding things up, we might circulate a warning about a Hospital Mix-Up. Our alto Dallas once sang this to a group of urologists she encountered in a hospital lift. They uttered not a word.

Most of us adore going to folk festivals and we enjoy introducing Banjo Paterson's legendary Man From Snowy River to our audiences. We usually try to make the introduction last longer than the song.

I wish it happened more often but occasionally I've started composing a song while fast asleep. Fill My Glass, purred the alto in my surreal bar room. I hope she forgives me for forsaking her seductive breathiness for a clear bell-like soprano tone.

However the previous song’s scenario may have turned out, things look a lot more complicated for the participants in Wayward Waltz. We should all remember that polyamory is wrong. Never mix Greek and Latin in the same neologism!

Waste Hierarchy is an important concept. The idea is to use as few resources, and as little of them, as possible. If we can, we should re-use them and only recycle them when their usefulness is exhausted. By the time we get through the diminished intervals and diminuendos, the re-used perfect fifths and the baroque style fugue of this piece we singers are pretty well exhausted ourselves!

Some years ago Terry watched the weather change several times in one afternoon. His Forecasting is an energetic and uplifting reflection on things not staying the same.

I feel sure that Andsome Friends won't stay completely the same. A new emphasis on gigging is on the cards. No point making an album if there are no opportunities to promote it! We’ve already begun learning pieces for our second album and are looking for a bass to join us. What I trust will not change is the love, hilarity and witty banter that charge our rehearsals and dinner parties and which make it such a profound pleasure to share music with very dear friends.

- Miguel Heatwole, 2019

 
 
  • Throw Your Arms Around Me  & $m
    Hunters and Collectors, 1984
    Arranged: Miguel Heatwole, 2008
    Soprano: Belinda Bennett, Kate Andrews
    Alto: Christina Mimmocchi, Polly Wedlock
    Tenor: Terry Clinton, Miguel Heatwole
    Bass: Robert Boddington, Joe Vandermeer

     
  • Can’t Stand Losin’ You  *m
    Gordon Sumner (Sting), 1978
    Arranged: Miguel Heatwole, 2011
    Soprano: Yasmin Funk, Sophie Moore, Lisa Stewart, Kylie Willows
    Alto: Dallas De Brabander, Christina Mimmocchi,
    Lisa Vincent
    Tenor: Terry Clinton, Brian White
    Bass:
    Robert Boddington, Miguel Heatwole, Joe Vandermeer
     
  • Rest  ^* m
    Miguel Heatwole, 2001
    Soprano: Yasmin Funk, Sophie Moore, Kylie Willows
    Alto: Dallas De Brabander, Rebecca Bastoli
    Tenor: Jess Ciampa, Terry Clinton,
    Brian White
    Bass:  Miguel Heatwole, Joe Vandermeer

  • Change    
    Terry Clinton, 2012

    Soprano: Yasmin Funk, Kylie Willows
    Alto: Da[llas De Brabander, Christina Mimmocchi
    Tenor: Terry Clinton, Brian White
    Bass: Miguel Heatwole, Joe Vandermeer
    Vihuela: Terry Clinton

     
  • Colours In My Head $
    Miguel Heatwole, 2009
    Soprano: Yasmin Funk, Sophie Moore, Barbara Sanders, Kylie Willows
    Alto: Dallas De Brabander, Janelle Heron
    Tenor: Terry Clinton, Brian White
    Bass: Miguel Heatwole, Joe Vandermeer
  • Swing A Cat *  
    Top Cat: Hoyt Curtin, 1961      
    Felix The Cat: Winston Sharples, 1958
    Cattangooga Cats: Mike Curb & Anihanbar music co. 1969           
    Arranged: Miguel Heatwole, 2011

    Soprano: Yasmin Funk, Sophie Moore, Kylie Willows
    Alto: Dallas De Brabander, Christina Mimmocchi
    Tenor: Terry Clinton, Brian White
    Bass: Miguel Heatwole, Joe Vandermeer

     
  • Heroes Of Olde $
    Arthur and the Square Knights of the Round Table: Clare Bail, 1966      
    The Tale of Sir Robin: Eric Idle 1974
    Black Adder: Howard Goodall, 1983           
    Arranged: Miguel Heatwole, 2009
    Soprano: Yasmin Funk, Barbara Sanders, Kylie Willows
    Alto: Dallas De Brabander, Janelle Heron,
    Lisa Vincent
    Tenor: Terry Clinton, Brian White
    Bass: Miguel Heatwole, Joe Vandermeer

     
  • Bright Moon ^
    Russell Neal, 2006

    Arranged: Miguel Heatwole, 2012
    Soprano: Yasmin Funk, Sophie Moore, Kylie Willows
    Alto: Dallas De Brabander, Rebecca Bastoli. Lisa Vincent (soloist)
    Tenor: Jess Ciampa, Terry Clinton

    Bass:
    Miguel Heatwole, Brian White
     
             Miguel Heatwole: miguelheatwole@gmail.com

 

 
  • Elephant In The Room m
    Clark Gormley, 2012
    Arranged: Miguel Heatwole, 2013
    Soprano: Lisa Stewart, Kylie Willows
    Alto: Dallas De Brabander,  Jeanette Freeman, Sarah McCarthy
    Tenor: Jess Ciampa, Terry Clinton

    Bass:
    Robert Boddington, Miguel Heatwole

  • The Rat Is Round $
    Miguel Heatwole, 2009
    Soprano: Yasmin Funk, Barbara Sanders, Kylie Willows
    Alto: Dallas De Brabander, Janelle Heron
    Tenor: Terry Clinton, Brian White
    Bass: Miguel Heatwole, Joe Vandermeer

     
  • Hospital Mix Up $
    Words: Anonymous
    Music: Miguel Heatwole, 2007

    Yasmin Funk (soloist), Sallyanne Brown, Joe Vandermeer
    Margot McLaughlin, Terry Clinton, Lisa Vincent
    Dallas De Brabander,
    Michael Handy, Lisa Stewart, Brian White
  • Man From Snowy River $
    Words: adapted from Andrew 'Banjo' Paterson
    Music: Miguel Heatwole 2007
    Soprano: Yasmin Funk, Margot McLaughlin
    Alto: Dallas De Brabander, Janelle Heron
    Baritone: Terry Clinton, Miguel Heatwole, Brian White,  Joe Vandermeer
  • Fill My Glass   m
    Miguel Heatwole, 2014
    Soprano: Lisa Stewart, Kylie Willows
    Alto: Dallas De Brabander, Jeanette Freeman, Sarah McCarthy
    Tenor: Terry Clinton, Jess Ciampa

    Bass: Robert Boddington, Miguel Heatwole
  • Wayward Waltz *m
    Miguel Heatwole, 2009
    Soprano: Kylie Willows,
    Sophie Moore
    Alto: Dallas De Brabander, Sallyanne Brown
    Baritone: Miguel Heatwole, Michael Handy
  • Waste Hierarchy  $m
    Miguel Heatwole, 2007
    Soprano: Yasmin Funk, Margot McLaughlin, Lisa Stewart
    Alto: Dallas De Brabander, Janelle Heron,
    Lisa Vincent
    Tenor: Terry Clinton, Brian White

    Bass: Robert Boddington, Miguel Heatwole, Joe Vandermeer

     
  • Forecasting  $m
    Terry Clinton, 2003
    Soprano: Yasmin Funk, Barbara Sanders,
    Sophie Moore, Kylie Willows
    Alto: Dallas De Brabander, Janelle Heron
    Tenor: Terry Clinton, Brian White
    Bass: Miguel Heatwole, Joe Vandermeer

    Vihuela: Terry Clinton
 
$ Robin Gist, Tonemaster Productions, 2009 & 2011
* Mark Davies, Dec 2012
^ Brain Studios, 2014
& Mike Mansted, Arc Of Light, May 2000
m Miguel Heatwole's living room, 2016