Ward Lamar Swingle was an American vocalist and jazz musician who founded The Swingle Singers in France in 1962.
10 Facts About Ward Swingle
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Ward Swingle learned clarinet, oboe and the piano as a child.
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Ward Swingle played in Mobile-area big bands before finishing high school.
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Ward Swingle met a French-born violin student, Francoise Demorest, and the couple married in 1952.
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Ward Swingle then moved to France in 1951 on a Fulbright scholarship, where he studied piano with Walter Gieseking and worked as a rehearsal pianist for Les Ballets de Paris.
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The Ward Swingle Singers released their albums Jazz Sebastian Bach and Bach's Greatest Hits in 1963.
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Ward Swingle moved to London and formed an English group, which variously had the names Swingle II and the New Swingle Singers.
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Ward Swingle's pioneering ideas in new choral techniques produced invitations to conduct the Stockholm and Netherlands Chamber Choirs, the Dale Warland Singers, the Sydney Philharmonia Motet Choir, the BBC Northern Singers and the MENC National Honors Choir at Kennedy Center.
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In 1997 he wrote an autobiography and treatise entitled Ward Swingle Singing, in which he defined 'Ward Swingle Singing' techniques with illustrations from his arrangements and compositions.
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On February 20,2004, Ward Swingle was named "Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres" by the French Minister of Culture and Information.