This past week, I had a very great musical experience. Every summer, a University in our state holds a series of choir workshops. I attended last year for the first time. Normally, I attend the Tuesday sessions, during which we spend three hours, first rehearsing, then singing through great pieces of choir music.
This year, another opportunity presented itself. There was a weekend session in which we spent three hours on Thurs. evening, three on Fri. evening, and a couple of two hour sessions on Saturday, then perform the piece Sat. night. Yes, that's a total of ten hours from sight-reading to performing a large choral composition--in other words, great fun!
We sang Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace. I have included a video of Jenkins directing a performance of the opening song. We did not record video of our performance, but do have access to a CD recording. this was such a great piece of music, and I'm glad I did this, even though it nearly wiped me out, since there were several nights this week where i was not home until midnight, but I had to be up early each day to get to work.
Then, during the performance, under those bright lights, I started sweating. I had worn a shirt which was comfortable, but I now know has a tendency to darken with moisture. By the end of the concert, I looked quite splotchy. I wasn't sweating because I was nervous, because I don't really get nervous to sing. it was just hot, and they had turned off the air conditioning to keep the noise level down. >:o(
1 comment:
When I was a choir director we used to go to a music workshop twice a year put on by the local music store in town. We would go for 3-4 hours and just sing through a stack of music at least 4-5" thick. We got to keep all that sheet music, and if we wanted to order any, got a discount that night. It was tons of fun to sing with all those choir directors from every church (all different faiths) all over the city! They always invited a different composer to come and "lead" the music. The pianist was absolutely amazing and would "sight read" every piece with hardly ever a mistake. Wow! Great fun!
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