Another beautiful sound I love to hear: the buzz (and occasional cacaphony) of my choristers chatting and laughing together. We had a coffee social breaktime with treats brought in by the executive and decaf coffee and tea and all the essential snack time accessories brought in by Kit. A few of us wore Halloween costumes. Daphne was the most festive and adorable.
With Donna and Lauren sick, Renate led the Christmas Lullaby small group alone with the help of a recording. Well, it was not ideal. So, we're going to have the Christmas Lullaby rehearse at 7:15 for the next few weeks. I've updated the calendar. Please take a look.(see below)
I'm so very grateful for Tabatha! Tabatha was asked only hours before our rehearsal if she could step in for Donna, and she came! We are so very fortunate.
1. Star Canon was our warm-up. We needed to get straight to work. It was very good. I had to remind the Sopranos to watch for the times when they need to come in on beat one, especially on the last two pages where it's a bit of a challenge for them to read the middle line. It's still the top of the choir bracket. The top line is the "small group" which for us is the tenor and bass section.
2. Christmas Auld Lang Syne is finished! It's such a good piece; so many great melodies in that medley. And, it's fairly easy to learn the harmonies. As I said yesterday, the pianist has the most work, because she gives us all the transitions and the different moods. Thank heaven we can depend on our wonderful accompanists! Watch me throughout, but especially on the last piece, so that we're observing the rests together and slow down together. Something we found challenging: on the Christmas Waltz, there's a part that's very different from the version we sang last year. On page 10, bars 85 and 86: true 2-3 and. The and comes in much sooner that what you want to sing. It's right on beat one of the next bar. Watch out for the very long Christ-mah-ahss at the top of page 13. We have to all get to the s together. Watch me.
3. 12 Groovy Days also gives a lot of bang for our buck. It's tons of fun and not a ton of work. We spent time on the grooviest section, starting at the pick-up to 63: Complete Disco! is what it says. And, I was singing the first part wrong. "And on the 'leventh day" (tha levin, not thee eleven). Groovy! Also, we did the ending starting at bar 94 . Sopranos divide on page 15. Watch me for the Boogie Down at the end. Because it's a bit chaotic, we'll hold signs up for each of the gifts, clearly printed words. I think the audience will enjoy it more when they understand what the silly gifts are.
4. When You Believe is going to be spectacular. Jane asked me if I wanted the tea lights again this year. We had them for our star theme, and it was very effective. I didn't know, had no plan. And then, minutes later I was on Facebook and When You Believe showed up sung by an enormous choir. Toward the end, they all lit up lights! Bam. That's it. We're going to hold up tea lights for the ending. We have a couple bars to turn them on while we sing that very slow and loud Ashira Ashira Ashira and pause before the big finish. This huge group also swayed their bodies. I think we might be able to do that during Why We Sing, which is our finale number. Hold up lights and sway for our last song. Ta-da!
5. For Unto Us a Child is Born. Sorry, it's cut. A few people were disappointed that I decided to put this aside for this year. We will definitely come back to it. We spend quite a bit of time learning it and came very close. However, we are getting close to our concert date and still have lots of work to do. A few people were very happy to not have to worry about this one. I'm looking at Santa's Wish as well. It will be simplified or also dropped.
INVITE EVERYONE TO OUR CONCERT!
Jane had posters for us to take. I'm posting mine at my church. Do you have a place to post things? Carol had tickets too. Please be sure to buy your tickets as soon as possible, and book your friends and family. Send them an email or a text with the poster pdf here and png here. and maybe write out the details for them to copy. You could also make a calendar event or use our calendar event and invite people from there. If you're on Facebook, invite people to our Facebook Event. Invite them out for pizza after or over to your place after for pizza, or a charcuterie board and champagne,...
Next week, you can pay for the pointsettias too! This is an excellent way to make the church look festive and fancy, and we get fantastic flowers to take home or to give to our guests.
We have square so that you can tap your credit cards! (cash and cheques are good too)
Next week: Tuesday, November 5th
6:30 Alto Sectional Rehearsal (7:15 Christmas Lullaby)
- Song for a Winter's Night
- 12 Groovy Days
- When You Believe
- Your Song
Below is a snip of our calendar in the agenda/schedule view. Please take note of the upcoming early rehearsals. Next week the Alto section is coming at 6:30 for special sectional review. Christmas Lullaby is going to take a few minutes of that early time to go over their song.
The following week Pains of Christmas comes back, and then after that the Tenors get a sectional rehearsal at 6:30. Each week Christmas Lullaby comes a bit early.
At Trinity Anglican, for our run-through, we have small groups and soloists coming early to work with microphones. Everybody comes early so that we can go through the whole show. We might end up going late, so I entered 10:00 as the end time. It will be a long night for us.
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| YRCC Calendar |
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