Chanticleer!

I am to Chanticleer what many 14-year-old girls used to be to Lil Bow Wow. This sounds...um...geeky at best, but Chanticleer is this men's chorus that kicks the total face off of all mass around it. Their voices are just per-fec-tion.

Here, just listen.

Or read.

Anyway, tonight I'm sitting at Grumpy's with a bunch of the MN Opera's people (b/c that's what happens when you have a friend named Angie who has an interesting job) and I ask this guy next to me how he's liked working (um, singing) at the Opera and what he plans to do next. He likes it, he says. And then:

"I'm moving to San Francisco," he sort of shrugs, "to sing with this men's chorus..." he pauses and I nod, sort of interested ..."called Chanticleer."

I lost it. I got sweaty and couldn't stop saying, "I can't believe it! I'm so excited for you! That's so great!!"

I mean, I was sitting there - individually putting ketchup on tater tots - next to a guy who is in a premier, world-touring vocal ensemble. I'm still giddy and feel ridiculous. I might put up a life-size poster of them in my room.

In closing, let me tell you that they do this thing (it's like magic), where they're singing so perfectly in tune that individual singers can create more than one note at a time. It's true:

"Overtone singing (also known as harmonic singing) is the technique originating from Mongolia which singers can use to produce more than one note at once. The human voice produces a simultaneous range of overtones, or harmonics. A skilled overtone singer can focus specifically on these discreet overtones."