Tony Backhouse
Composer, Singer, Vocal Arranger, Choir Director & Author
Singer, composer, vocal arranger, musical director, workshop leader
and author Tony Backhouse, is one of the leaders in the Sydney a
cappella movement. He led the
Café of the Gate of Salvation gospel choir for 21 years and has sung with male a cappella trio
Heavenly Lights since 1996. In his pre-a cappella life, he took a B.A. (English) and B.Mus. (Composition) at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He wrote some music for theatre and film (including Four Shorts on Architecture, a doco directed by Sam Neill for the New Zealand Film Unit,1975) and worked as a radio programmer for the NZBC and later as session singer and guitarist. He played guitar and sang in many notable bands in New Zealand including Mammal (who recorded one LP with poet Sam Hunt, music by Tony), Spatz, Rough Justice and the Crocodiles, (who won three NZ Recording Industry Awards in 1980). Moving to Australia in 1981, Tony sang and played with Renée Geyer, Joe Walsh, Jenny Morris, and the late Jackie Orszaczky’s Jump Back Jack, led his own band the Vulgar Beatmen and arranged and recorded backing vocals for Dave Dobbyn, Tim Finn, Vince Jones, Kate Ceberano, the Umbrellas and Harry Manx.
In the late '80s, eschewing amplified bands and the attendant lugging, Tony went a more portable musical route: he founded a cappella quartet the Elevators (1985-1990), and a cappella gospel choir the Café of the Gate of Salvation in1986. He directed the choir and provided almost all their original songs and arrangements for 21 years, resigning in 2007. In the '90s,he co-founded (with Stuart Davis) the Sydney Acappella Association which he co-ordinated for five years. He founded a cappella gospel choir the Honeybees and directed them for their first six years. His gospel quartet Heavenly Light Quartet formed in 1996 and released one CD in 1997. He has appeared at WOMADelaide four times, with Café of the Gate of Salvation, Heavenly Light Quartet and national choir, Gospel Nation, and at WOMAD NZ in 2006 he ran workshops and appeared with the Jubilation Gospel choir.
Tony has had songs recorded by Jenny Morris, Renée
Geyer, the Dynamic Hepnotics and the Umbrellas,
and on film soundtracks - including Sweetie (Jane Campion),
Rodney & Juliet (Kiwi Films 1990, dir. Fane Flaws - in which Tony acted in the lead
role), and Brain Dead (Peter Jackson). He performed as singer/musical
director for the first a cappella musical in Australia, Steve J. Spears' Namatjira
Park (1992), and he researched and coordinated the 1993 TVNZ
documentary on NZ vocal traditions, Strictly A cappella.
Tony was the recipient of the Contemporary A Cappella Society of
America's 1993 Contemporary Recording Awards for Best Song and Best
Soloist (Runner-up); the Café of the Gate of Salvation received
Best Album (Runner-up) Award. He has received composer commissions
from the Song Company, from the Australia Council to write music
for the Café of the Gate of Salvation (who released
CDs in 1992,1995 and 2004) and the Sydney Children's Choir, and
in 1990 an Australia Council International Study Grant to research
Black gospel traditions in the USA.
Tony has made several research trips to the USA. He has sung solo
and with Black choirs in churches in the USA, and taught and performed
at the 1995 West Coast A cappella Summit, California. He has led
the Café of the Gate of Salvation and the Band of Angels
(WA) on research/performance tours of the USA, and directed New
Orleans choir the Heralds of Christ at the New Orleans Jazz &
Heritage Festival Gospel Tent. He has acted as tour leader and musical
director for five gospel tours of the USA, taking participants to
immerse themselves in the Black church tradition.
Since 1987, Tony has run vocal workshops throughout Australia and
New Zealand, Canada, the UK, France and Samoa, and has been a solo
performer (guitar and voice) at festivals and gigs thoughout Australia. He has worked with
(and been instrumental in setting up) many community choirs in Australia
and New Zealand, and has run workshops at festivals, in educational institutions
and in the corporate sector for enterprises such as BNZ and the
All Blacks.
Tony contributed entries on ‘Gospel Choirs’ and ‘A cappella Singing’ to the Currency Companion to Music and Dance in Australia (2003). He has published two African American gospel songbooks: A cappella • Rehearsing For Heaven (first published in 1995; the accompanying double CD was released in 2003) and Move On Up (2005).
See also:
http://tonybackhouse.blogspot.com
http://www.myspace.com/tonybackhouse