OUR STORY
DUALIS - /ˌdyˈaː.lɪs/ : double, twofold, both, dual
DUALIS started off as a lingering thought in the back of my mind. I was living in Philadelphia, where I had the opportunity to work with some of the most incredible musicians and vocalists I had ever and would ever meet. I was obsessed with the idea of bringing my two loves - Heavy Metal and Choral Music - together. I spent months writing a piece called "The Birth of Language," which married C.S. Lewis's spellbinding poetry with heavy guitar riffs, a cappella choral music, and a beautiful soprano solo to top it all off. It had everything I loved, and it worked seamlessly; it was perfect, or so I thought. As many young composers do, I found out the hard way that before you do all the work of writing a piece, you should clear the text with the original poet, or in this case, the poet's estate. Due to copyright issues, I was unable to move forward with "The Birth of Language."
Soon after this, I accepted a job teaching Choir at Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, MD, where I still teach to this day. For years I kept thinking about starting DUALIS in Baltimore, and it was always "not the right time" or "maybe next year." One day this past year, my personal recording of "The Birth of Language" popped up while I was doing work around the apartment. Listening to the cascading guitar lines, the choral interjections, the heart-pounding drums, and the massive bass presence made me fall in love with the idea all over again, and the idea of DUALIS once more became an itch I had to scratch.
I immediately went to work trying to plan what DUALIS would look like. As an individual without an underlying organization, it's very challenging to get any project off the ground, let alone one of the magnitude of DUALIS, so I decided to start small. In 2023, I got a fantastic group of singers together to record a piece I had written for Grace & St. Peter's Church. These fantastic musicians, dubbed the "Kevin Crouch Singers" for lack of better title, agreed to dedicate 8 hours of their weekends to help make my dream come to life, all without ANY compensation (aside from food and complimentary beverages). This was my first foray into working with singers of this caliber, and it was everything I'd hoped it would be. I decided that, in order to get where I eventually wanted with DUALIS, I would need to be able to pay these high caliber musicians, which would mean starting with something a bit less gargantuan than a choral-metal concert.
To this end, I decided I would fund the first DUALIS concert, to get the project off of the ground, and see what kind of traction it would gain. I created a program of extremely diverse choral repertoire, focusing on the idea of contrast. I approached some of the finest musicians I knew and invited them to be a part of a new group with its eyes set on the future, and DUALIS was formed.
DUALIS is about juxtaposing music from vastly differing time periods, styles, genres, and sonic pallets. It's about exploring the musical and cultural connections between the old and the new, the harmonious and the discordant, the acoustic and the electric, and everything in between. In its inaugural concert, "Bound by Harmony," DUALIS explores connections in many different forms, all through the scope of a cappella choral music. I am so excited for this group to make its debut, and to see what fantastic things it will do in the years to come.
-Kevin Crouch, Artistic Director
DUALIS started off as a lingering thought in the back of my mind. I was living in Philadelphia, where I had the opportunity to work with some of the most incredible musicians and vocalists I had ever and would ever meet. I was obsessed with the idea of bringing my two loves - Heavy Metal and Choral Music - together. I spent months writing a piece called "The Birth of Language," which married C.S. Lewis's spellbinding poetry with heavy guitar riffs, a cappella choral music, and a beautiful soprano solo to top it all off. It had everything I loved, and it worked seamlessly; it was perfect, or so I thought. As many young composers do, I found out the hard way that before you do all the work of writing a piece, you should clear the text with the original poet, or in this case, the poet's estate. Due to copyright issues, I was unable to move forward with "The Birth of Language."
Soon after this, I accepted a job teaching Choir at Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, MD, where I still teach to this day. For years I kept thinking about starting DUALIS in Baltimore, and it was always "not the right time" or "maybe next year." One day this past year, my personal recording of "The Birth of Language" popped up while I was doing work around the apartment. Listening to the cascading guitar lines, the choral interjections, the heart-pounding drums, and the massive bass presence made me fall in love with the idea all over again, and the idea of DUALIS once more became an itch I had to scratch.
I immediately went to work trying to plan what DUALIS would look like. As an individual without an underlying organization, it's very challenging to get any project off the ground, let alone one of the magnitude of DUALIS, so I decided to start small. In 2023, I got a fantastic group of singers together to record a piece I had written for Grace & St. Peter's Church. These fantastic musicians, dubbed the "Kevin Crouch Singers" for lack of better title, agreed to dedicate 8 hours of their weekends to help make my dream come to life, all without ANY compensation (aside from food and complimentary beverages). This was my first foray into working with singers of this caliber, and it was everything I'd hoped it would be. I decided that, in order to get where I eventually wanted with DUALIS, I would need to be able to pay these high caliber musicians, which would mean starting with something a bit less gargantuan than a choral-metal concert.
To this end, I decided I would fund the first DUALIS concert, to get the project off of the ground, and see what kind of traction it would gain. I created a program of extremely diverse choral repertoire, focusing on the idea of contrast. I approached some of the finest musicians I knew and invited them to be a part of a new group with its eyes set on the future, and DUALIS was formed.
DUALIS is about juxtaposing music from vastly differing time periods, styles, genres, and sonic pallets. It's about exploring the musical and cultural connections between the old and the new, the harmonious and the discordant, the acoustic and the electric, and everything in between. In its inaugural concert, "Bound by Harmony," DUALIS explores connections in many different forms, all through the scope of a cappella choral music. I am so excited for this group to make its debut, and to see what fantastic things it will do in the years to come.
-Kevin Crouch, Artistic Director