collaboration spotlight — Seasons of Love by AJ Rafael & VoicePlay
To (slightly belatedly) celebrate the 20th anniversary of Rent's debut on Broadway, these five musical theater nerds teamed up for a gorgeous a cappella rendition of one of the show's most well-known songs. Just as the original tune opens the second act of the play, this video was VoicePlay's first music video released after the announcement of Tony's departure from the group, and the start of a new chapter in their history. It was also their first release of the year, even if it wasn't on their own channel.
Details:
title: Seasons of Love
original performers: cast of Rent (1996)
written by: Jonathan Larson
arranged by: AJ Rafael & VoicePlay
release date: 17 January 2017
My favorite bits:
those unmistakable opening harmonies
Layne starting simple with just body percussion for the first verse
AJ's smooth, warm timbre to kick things off
passing the lead vocals around the group
that moment of contemplative silence between the repeated questions of the verse and the answering chorus
AJ, Eli, and Earl's precise, coordinated diction when the first ♫ "sea-sons of love" ♫ hits
Earl's laserbeam tone at the start of the second verse
the powerful crescendo on ♫ "he diii-IIIED" ♫
the lovely little bell chord in the second chorus
those drum fills as the song reaches its greatest intensity
ending on a satisfying harmonic resolution
Layne refusing to let Earl leave the frame during the outro, and Earl just giving in and staring intensely into the lens
Trivia:
A portion of this song was included in VoicePlay's "Aca Top 10 – Broadway" countdown, which they also performed on the 2015 Sing-Off tour.
This video was filmed in early October during VoicePlay's swing through California. It was quite unusual for them to have such a long wait between recording and release, but collaborations are always a little more complicated than their usual workflow in which they do everything themselves.
They subsequently added this arrangement to their setlists for live shows, starting with the 12th annual Napa Valley A Cappella Extravaganza.
A fan was inspired to draw some fanart of Layne and Eli.
AJ was one of the YouTubers invited to the 2015 #DisneySide All-Star Creator Conference at Disney World, at which VoicePlay were part of the local entertainment. While there, he teamed up with Roxy Darr to film a very cute video of a date day for the official Disney YouTube channel.
AJ has also done a couple collaborations with his fellow Filipino-American singers, The Filharmonic, who were on The Sing-Off season 4 and the subsequent 2014 tour with VoicePlay.
