Swing Shift
Your home for a cappella vocal jazz !!!

Roster

Holly Pitrago	Holly Pitrago is one of Swing Shift’s two sopranos. She does stage and screen (big and small), and brings her cheerful and wicked smart professionalism to brighten our Swing Shift star. She grew up in Michigan, studied piano at age 7 and followed in her father’s footsteps taking up the bassoon at age 11. Her bassoon skills ultimately led to first chair in the Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra. She received her MA in Theatre Arts at Eastern Michigan U. Her theatrical urge took her to New York City where she performed in dinner theater, worked on cruise ships, and did children’s musical theater. In LA she works TV and films, where she has appeared in A Beautiful Mind and the daytime serial, Passions. She continues both her acting and singing with varied career stops in Second City, professional Christmas Caroling, and session singing with credits including The Simpsons, Evan Almighty, and Watchmen. Find out more about Holly on her web site: www.hollypitrago.com. Holly joined Swing Shift in 2009, and has cemented her place where her rich soprano voice and impeccable phrasing have put their stamp on the group’s signature sound. She also likes to alternate lead with second soprano as she says, to exercise her sight-reading chops.
Suzanne Waters	Suzanne joined Swing Shift in June 2011, and is our newest member. She shares the soprano register with Holly. Watch this space for Suzanne's bio, and watch our schedule for our inaugural appearance with Suzanne.
Janette La Bella	Janette La Bella is our beloved English import. She loves and is very active in regional theater, mostly musicals. Her warm rich sound fills up Swing Shift's harmonic middle, and her quick wit makes us all smile. She was born in Hastings, England, where she studied music at Laurel’s Academy of music. After she finished her studies, she moved to Germany, where she worked in musical theatre with the American Military. She played Sally Bowles in Cabaret, as well as Nancy in Oliver. One of her favourite roles was Meg Brockie in Brigadoon. While doing theatre, Janette and her husband Paul got together with some friends from one of the shows and formed Next Monday, a very successful a cappella group in the Worms area of Germany. She also joined the MTV Gospel choir in Heidelberg, and sang with them as well as Next Monday, for seven years. After making the big move to the US, Janette auditioned for and won some roles in local plays and musicals. In 2009 she played Cecily in The Odd Couple at the Antelope Valley Fair. She has also sung with various choruses and gospel groups. Janette came to Swing Shift in April 2009. She sings alto where her versatile voice and range enriches the inner fabric of the group sound. She hopes soon to do some writing/arranging of her own.

Phil Azelton	Phil Azelton has had a rich and varied musical career. He combines choir directing and peerless vocal jazz arranging, while bringing his mellifluous baritone to fill out Swing Shift's bottom end. Phil got into barbershop in high school. Smitten with the singing of the Four Freshmen and the Hi-Lo's, he began writing vocal arrangements in his teen years. After receiving a degree in composition from the University of Arizona, Phil moved to California where he completed his Master’s degree in choral conducting from the University of Southern California. At UCLA he sang with the Gregg Smith Singers and toured with diverse groups such as the Young Americans, the Kids Next Door and the Norman Luboff Choir. His choral arrangements were first performed at an ACDA convention in Hawaii and consequently published by Hal Leonard and Jenson. Phil’s arrangements are widely sung in high school and college choirs. Not surprisingly, many of his charts are in the Swing Shift repertoire and are much loved by the singers and audiences alike. Before heading the choral music department at Van Nuys High School in California, Phil spent many years “behind the scenes” in film music production in all the major studios in Hollywood. In addition to Swing Shift, Phil sings with the madrigal group, Oriana, a nine-voice swing choir, B.E.S.T. (which he directs), the concert choir, Cantori Domino, and in his copious spare time, Phil serves as the music director for his home church in Pacific Palisades.
Richard Gilinsky	Richard began his a cappella career when he formed a barbershop quartet at Omaha Central High School. College days were spent at Yale, then, as now, a campus teeming with 15 or more a cappella groups. Richard joined one of these, The Bachelors, his sophomore year singing baritone, leading the group for two years, and contributing many arrangements to their repertoire. However, during junior year the vocal jazz bug bit hard, and Richard formed Five Brothers (four singers + piano), for whom he wrote his first jazz arrangements. Senior year found the group in Carnegie Hall where they participated in an all-college jazz concert. After a long absence from music, Richard formed Swing Shift in 2002, beginning with an SSATB quintet. The group has changed over the years as new members joined and has varied from five to seven singers but always faithful to the musical sensibility of the original vocal jazz ideal. Richard has remained active in many musical ensembles, including, over the past few years, Cindy Bourquin's SMC Vocal jazz ensemble, Nike St. Clair's SMC chamber choir, the madrigal ensemble Oriana, and various church choirs. Vocal jazz remains Richard's passion, however, both as an inspiration for his arrangements and as a platform for performance. Swing Shift has grown and matured, and with each new edition, the promise of the original idea has increasingly been fulfilled.