January 3, 2016

​Happy New Year to you all!!  May your coming year be filled with rewarding experiences, good health, and great music.
 
With those earnest wishes in mind, we look forward to the return of our Monday night rehearsal schedule, beginning this coming week, January 4, at 7:00 p.m.  During our December rehearsals, we were looking only at selected pieces from our spring packet, but now we’ll work on them all!  The March 20 (3 p.m.at All Sts’) concert is billed as “The Great Singing Variety Show,” with the idea that some of choral music’s most representative genres would make an appearance.  (Something for everyone, in other words. In this case, there’s traditional literature, musical theatre, popular, and spirituals.) There will be an additional two or three for our spring concert, but for the most part, here’s the music we have ahead:
 
Gabriel Faure              Cantique de Jean Racine
Gerald Finzi                God Is Gone Up With a Shout
Gerald Finzi                My Spirit Sang All Day
Franz Biebl                  Ave Maria (men)
Knut Nystedt              Cry Out and Shout
Jean Berger                 The Eyes of All
arr. Moses Hogan        My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord
arr. Undine Moore      Daniel, Daniel, Servant of the Lord
arr. Sevier                    Precious Lord, Take My Hand
arr. Mark Hayes          All the Things You Are
arr. Mark Hayes          Ain’t Misbehavin’
arr. Zegree                   It’s a Most Unusual Day
arr. Zegree                   More I Cannot Wish You
Z. Randall Stroupe      When I Have Sung My Songs to You
And of course:
Beethoven!!                Symphony 9
 
Wow!!  Some of these are among the most challenging music we’ve ever done (the Moses Hogan and Undine Moore, for example), but all are rewarding to sing. We’ll have a good time.
 
During this part of the season, there will a few “wrinkles” in the normal schedule, as we prepare for a Beethoven 9th performance on April 19.  You will receive most of the details at Monday’s rehearsal, and we’ll also post them on the website as they become solidified.  These changes will be minor (involving a couple of Monday night location changes and also two Tuesday nights when we rehearse with the ISO later in the spring). As we’ve already done (a little), we’ll some modest study of the Beethoven score, to get us up to speed for combined rehearsals with FSC and SEU singers in February and March.  But we’ll save the concentrated work on that for later March and April.
 
And now, a “gift” to you:  If you’ve not already seen Eric Whitacre’s TED talk about his virtual choir, you should.  I’ve watched it several times – and always finish the experience a little happier.  It speaks to each of us as singers, about the joy of singing, about the urge to join our singing energies with those of others – to create something larger and more magical than anything we could do alone. There are other links to the complete pieces, but here is the first installment, which provides the best introduction:
         http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_whitacre_a_virtual_choir_2_000_voices_strong
 
We’ll be joined a few new voices next week, but you may know of other good singers who also should join us.  Please pass the word!  Thanks for fine singing.
 
Larry