6:30 The Night of Stars small group met for the first time, and discovered that they need a few more altos. Luckily, some altos volunteered to join next week. This piece of music is classical, a very famous barcarolle from an Opera, which is so famous that it's called The Barcarolle, so you might be familiar with the melody. The original is sung in French and they sing "Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour" beautiful night, o night of love. The English translation adds the stars, which suits our theme.
Our warm-up was one of our favourite, and fan-favourite, songs: Hallelujah! It's going to be our encore song. I wasn't sure about it because it's not in our theme, but as an encore, it's allowed to be an outlier. We talked a little about dynamics and our arrangement. The choir knows this so well that new folks should be able to follow easily. We'll study it a little later if you think you need it. Let me know.
1. Star Canon: we learned the whole thing in one shot, all the parts to the end. This song is based on Pachelbel's Canon in D, which you'll recognize from countless wedding ceremonies, and from our choir piece Canon of Joy. It's a sweet, charming, whimsical song that quotes a nursery rhyme: Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight: wish I may, wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight. The arrangement is in two parts, but toward the end it adds a "small group" part. I'm assigning the Tenors and Basses to that small group, so that we end up in 3 parts. Tenors and Basses will move around a bit, then. Starting at bar 5, Part ll will be only Altos. At bar 13, Sopranos enter as Part l. From 21-29, Sopranos and Altos continue alone. At 29, the Basses join the Altos in Part ll, and then the Tenors join the Sopranos in Part l. At 41, the "small group" starts, and that's all the Tenors and Basses. You're on top until the end. Part 1 is Sopranos, and Part ll is Altos for pages 7 and 8. Please mark up your music in pencil only! If you want pen marks or highlighter, make a photocopy that you can use as a "working copy" just for you. It's legal.
2. Nella Fantasia: People were suggesting the "working copy" solution for this song. The way it's written for both Italian and English can be confusing. (I got so confused singing Italian randomly throughout-yeesh!) Lorraine and Melinda both printed copies so that they could highlight their parts and black out the parts they're not singing. So smart! Melinda discovered that while I had said that only Sopranos are singing Italian, there are a few words of Italian that everybody sings at the end of the first verse. So, the lesson learned could be to wait until we've covered each section before you make your notes. We studied the first verse, the melody in Italian for the Sopranos, and all the ooohs for everyone else. The Altos divide for a few bars (15-17). Front rows are on top, back on the bottom. There's a little bit of tension on the first note of bar 15, that releases on beat 2 before the Sopranos sing "pien'd'umanita" full of humanity. Altos are so cool! Altos and Basses trade off runs of quarter notes in bars 13 and 14. Make sure those are strong. We have recordings of the accompaniment and all parts. Just be aware that the bold notes were chosen, so there will be extra notes and missing notes where the English words have a different number of syllables. If you've got your part highlighted, on your working copy, then you should be able to see what you need and follow along with your recording. Be sure to use pencil only on the purchased scores.
3. Joseph: We reviewed Song of the King and learned Close Every Door. Colby is going to be an excellent King. Blair can be his back-up. Remember that the Tenor part is written right under the Soprano and Alto parts during that solo. Reminder: at the end, on page 20 in the middle system, it's just Sopranos and Tenors. It's too high and we don't want anyone hurt. Close Every Door is awesome. It starts off sweet and a little sad, but ends up powerful. Starting at 192, we get loud, and the ending starting at 200 is full of passion. The next section, Benjamin Calypso, is a huge contrast and has 2 solos. Maybe you want to look ahead for next week? We sang from the beginning through to the end of Close Every Door. The Joseph Medley is coming along swimmingly.
We talked about:
The Choir!Choir!Choir! concert in Richmond Hill on Thursday, March 7th. There's only one ticket left. We have 12. It's going to be a wonderful evening.
The Bass Clef small group coming up, starting March 12th. Anthem from Chess. The arrangement we have is SATB, so we're going to adapt it to TTBB with 3 solos at the start, and we're removing the aahs, to highlight the piano there. If you're looking ahead, focus on bar 49 to the end.
Another small group will be The Rainbow Connection, and I'd like to have a bunch of different instruments joining. If you play some guitar or ukulele, please join this. It looks like nobody plays the banjo. Clarinet, sax, recorder, anything like that would be fun. I'll bring my triangle, tambourine, and guiro, along with my little collection of "classroom instruments".
I forgot to talk about:
Our concert with the Newmarket Citizens Band! Saturday, May 25th, in the evening (but we'll be occupied most of the day) at the Old Town Hall in Newmarket. Save the date! And, let your friends and family know. We will have a rehearsal with the band on the Tuesday evening before that because we'll have a song to learn to sing with a band accompaniment. What a great experience that will be! Those dates are already on our Calendar. We get to sing for about half an hour on our own, and then we sing a grand finale with the band. The theme of that concert is Beyond the Horizons, so our songs about Stars and Dreams will fit in nicely. There will be a limit on the number of choristers because the stage is smallish.
Jane has started booking the seniors' homes visits for after our concert. I had a request from a dear close friend of mine to try to get a group to go to a home in Stouffville, outside our usual area. Let's be sure to talk about that next week.
Next Week, Tuesday, February 27th
6:30 Night of Stars small group
- Joseph: Close Every Door
- Joseph: Benjamin Calypso
- Nella Fantasia
- Power of the Dream
- Star Canon
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