Breakers Vocal Band

August 14, 2024

The Breakers Vocal Band ("BVB") was a five-piece vocal group formed in New York City in 2004. Established by Adam Farouk, BVB gained notoriety in Malaysia's cultural capital of Kuala Lumpur in the wake of its debut tour there, in 2005. During its brief semi-professional existence, the group performed two major tours, numerous private commissioned concerts, and released one self-produced studio-recorded album.

The Band:

Steve Engelbrecht

Andy Goldin

Adam Farouk

Greg Pratt

Chris Wildeman

Project Summary:

Excerpts taken from www.breakersvocalband.com

The very first meeting of the renamed and rebranded Breakers Vocal Band took place in October 2004, on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Having immediately accepted, with great anticipation, founder Adam Farouk's fallacious invitation to a "surf tour" of Malaysia, the group of five instead found itself reading through scores of music having been presented with a collection of demos outlining the repertoire for a proposed concert series, to take place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (at least that part was accurate).

In late fall 2004, the Breakers Vocal Band headed to New York City to shoot footage for a promotional TV spot sponsored by Malaysia’s “Astro” direct broadcast satellite service. Little of the original narrative—a brief story sequence, inspired by the classic film “The Sting,” of a gathering of colleagues to embark on a secret mission—made it into the promo’s final cut, which was required to be no longer than thirty seconds. Instead, what resulted was a wonderful, half-minute fusing of music and visuals that set the stage for the joyous celebration of sound, song, and the human voice that Equinox would prove to be.

In April 2005, the Breakers Vocal Band hosted an open house in Chestnut Hill, MA, performing together for the first time. Friends and family who attended were treated to a short set, spirited and unadorned—a hark-back to the kind of a cappella that had brought these five singers together in the first place.

The Breakers Vocal Band performed the "Equinox" Tour in Kuala Lumpur in 2005 to general acclaim. The repertoire focused on popular cover songs, although two Adam Farouk compositions--Under Your Spell, and Passing Moments—were featured as part of the tour’s main event set list. The concerts incorporated extensive choreography, and inventively-employed theatrical lighting, as opposed to the typical “rock” concert lighting, to set the mood of the performance. With the greatest production team in Malaysia—Roz “RC” Cheah, Adeline Tan, and Pat Gui, with Lennard Gui (no relation), as well as partnerships with Astro, CIMB, and Shangri-La hotels, and peripheral, in-kind sponsorship by Malaysia Airlines, Raul Shirts, and Communiqué, as well as generous private donations, Equinox ebulliently succeeded in its artistic mission, creating “a powerful synergy between performer and spectator” in order to bring forth an interactive, spontaneous, and, above all, satisfying musical experience.

In April 2006, the Breakers Vocal Band was commissioned by Nokia to assist in the release of the N91 smartphone in Malaysia. The group returned to Kuala Lumpur for a series of concerts, punctuated by various promotional appearances for the local press covering the release.

Invited to perform at a private destination wedding in early Summer 2006, the Breakers Vocal Band traveled en masse to Catalonia, Spain, to Cadaqués, a seaside town on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea's Costa Brava. Performances were mostly limited to the event itself, however, some were organized so as to take place in open spaces, for the general public, in addition to the guests, to enjoy.

In August 2006, the Breakers Vocal Band performed at "Jazz In The Square" in Syracuse, NY. Heavy rains just before, and at points during, the performance did little to dampen the irrepressible spirit of five sing-happy men, all of whom had remembered to bring their good jeans specially for the occasion.

On December 14th 2007, the Breakers Vocal Band released a five-song EP, titled "V" ("five"), a self-produced work whose production tone and put-together would draw from experimental rock albums of the sixties and seventies, in particular the dueling duo of The Beatles "Revolver" and The Beach Boys "Pet Sounds." Two years later, in 2009, the group officially (and amicably) disbanded.