The Swingles
The Swingles are one of the world’s most admired and loved vocal groups. With a natural flair as entertainers, their stylish, classy shows take them to venues and festival stages across the world. They have earned 5 Grammy® Awards and are recipients of multiple prestigious international accolades. With generations of fans from their live performances and appearances on film and TV soundtracks, The Swingles’ musical evolution and creative drive makes them as relevant today as when Ward Swingle started the group in Paris (originally Les Swingle Singers) over six decades ago.
With their trademark vocal dexterity and innate musicality, The Swingles are reimagining jazz, classical, folk and pop from their ever-growing repertoire of arrangements alongside a rich vein of new original material. The group’s secret ingredient is the ability of the seven singers, soloists, songwriters and storytellers to combine as one seamlessly blended and timeless sound. The Swingles have always made creative use of close-mic amplification, and in the last decade, they have added unique live audio looping techniques to their stage performances – an immersive layering up of vocals to mesmerise the audience.
The group has released more than 50 albums encompassing a huge variety of music, fuelled by Ward Swingle’s pioneering spirit and wide-ranging musical tastes. Carrying forward this legacy, today’s Swingles are Mallika Bhagwat (India/UK), Sarah Alison (US), Laura Moisey-Gray (UK), James Botcher (UK), Owen Butcher (UK), Jamie Wright (UK) and Tom Hartley (UK).
The Swingles have appeared on film and TV soundtracks, including ‘The Two Popes’, ‘Sex and the City’, ‘Wedding Crashers’ and ‘Glee’, as well as singing the theme for Italy’s beloved TV series ‘Superquark’. In 2017, they co-wrote and performed a song for the end credits of Alexander Payne’s film ‘Downsizing’, and in 2021 sang on Disney’s block-buster, ‘Cruella’.
Their genre-inclusive approach to music-making has led to great artistic collaborations with artists as diverse as the Modern Jazz Quartet, New York Voices, Jamie Cullum, The King’s Singers, Peter Hollens and Labrinth.
Alongside the goal to sing great music at the highest level for the enjoyment of others, The Swingles have a keen sense of social responsibility which they practice. They are also committed to devoting a large part of each year to work in education around the world, bringing their technical skills in the vocal arts together with stagecraft, improvisation, genre versatility, songwriting and arranging.
“The legendary Swingles, in their latest incarnation, navigated the dauntingly virtuosic terrain with breathtaking and often quite beautiful results.”
BAY AREA REPORTER
“The Swingles pitched those mysteriously lovely chords with laser-like precision... a triumph”
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
“How a group that has been going since the early 1960s can continue to create the same wonderfully pure and inspiring sounds that first made it famous is a mystery.”
IRISH EXAMINER
“Stunning reinventions of songs by the likes of John Martyn, Elbow and Mumford & Sons, with subtle beatboxing and audacious harmonies... superhero singing to truly raise goosebumps.”
THE GUARDIAN
“The orchestra and The Swingles...gave a stellar performance, full of color, vitality, and drama.”
BACHTRACK
“The vocal and choral world has changed considerably in the last 50 years... But The Swingles have managed to hold onto to their distinctive niche and continue to thrive.”
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
“Whether performing with the National Symphony Orchestra or in a cappella settings, The Swingles were never less than dazzling”
THE WASHINGTON POST
“Without question one of the best close harmony groups in the world... fantastic singers”
GARETH MALONE OBE