
Nothing Else Matters After Hearing ViVA Trio's Debut Album Release
Three young operatically-trained Toronto women collectively known as ViVA Trio hold the promise of upending the mostly male-dominated classical crossover space with an album set for release this Friday, entitled Nothing Else Matters.
The FACTOR-supported, crowd-funded debut has its release through Universal Music Canada by-way-of the ILS Group, and it beguiles with its exceptional and imaginative remakes of pop classics such as Sia’s “The Space Between,” Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World,” John Lennon’s “Imagine,” Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” and — wait for it — Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters.”
Comprising soprano Anna Bateman, mezzo-soprano Erin Fisher, and soprano and songwriter Katya Tchoubar, ViVA Trio’s album was recorded in various locations using digital technology to match the musicians, the voices and the Macedonian Philharmonic Orchestra into a symphonic slam of Old and New World genres.
The trio isn’t a big money play for supremacy in a tightly knit world of pop opera heretofore marqueed by fellow crossover artists such as Il Divo, 2Cellos and Evanescence. Instead, the self-managed trio has quietly built a footing playing corporate events, international stages that include Aldeburgh Music Festival in the UK, and New York’s Chautauqua Festival, and releasing a series of singles through iTunes with matching videos available through their YouTube channel.
Their version of “What a Wonderful World” has been featured in two commercials in South Korea. The first, an ad spot for the five-time Korean Baseball Series Champions, the Doosan Bears, and for the Republic’s giant industrial Doosan Group, has had a nine-month run.
ViVA Trio launch the album with a performance at Toronto's Isabel Bader Theatre on Oct. 22, at 3pm, accompanied by The Greater Toronto Philharmonic Orchestra.
More about the self-managed ViVA Trio here and below a taste of what’s to come.