We have made huge progress on all of our songs but the biggest success so far has got to be getting through For Unto Us! We’re going to have lots of fun performing that!
The 6:30 small group was Mary Did You Know/Breath of Heaven. It’s a mashup that we’ve arranged based on another mashup which two vocal groups recorded together. Our version of Breath of Heaven has been a favourite of ours for many years and this spices it up wonderfully.
Our warmup started wit the Monster Mash, the one everyone knows (even before the first notes, Robyn!?), which features a twist danceability, and the other by Geoff Castellucci, with a bouncier feel, and Geoff’s low, low bass voice. Then, for the stretching and rhythm exercises, and for inspiration we heard Shine by Jaslyn Edgar. ‘Who cares if you might mess it up? Just shine, darling. Go ahead and shine!’ Encouraging. Big loud "What???!" for the 18 innings of Blue Jays World Series baseball. Nuts. And a few Wows too.
1. Let There Be Peace on Earth: We needed some review on this so we went over each section, starting at the end. That ending is cool and important. We did great, and it’s excellent! If you missed today’s rehearsal, please review your part. We have recorded all the parts, including the descant/solos for the first sopranos.
2. Dona Nobis Pacem: "Give Us Peace" in Latin. (say: dough-nuh, no-beese, paw-tchem) We did a trial run of how this is going to work, with the small group performing and then leading the "audience" singing this very well-known round in 3 parts. The tenors and basses start, and they follow the 1st line all the way through. Kind of tricky when they're always on the bottom. Altos are comfortably in the middle in line 2, and sopranos are also oddly on the 3rd line, the bottom. We're going to ask all the low voices to follow the tenors and basses, and the rest of the audience will be divided into 2 parts, following either sopranos or altos, depending on where they're sitting. It worked out pretty well.
3. Angels Among Us: Wow! We did it with the soloists, and it worked out better than I expected. Kudos Sharon and Robyn for nailing those solos. We had one problem in the chorus: coming in early on "sent down to us". There are two rests before you start, and the second one is a whole beat, beat one. You have to wait to come in on beat 2. I always try to give a clear beat one. (I also yelled quite a bit yesterday on beat two) We might be a bit off in the bar before. It's supposed to be "Angels a-mong us (+1) Sent". We will try singing "Angels among us (4-1) Sent down to us". We reviewed the tenor/bass part at 42 which has a tricky page turn. You come in after beat one for the first bar, but the second bar, on the next page, starts on beat one, right away. Sopranos: the ending is written kindy funny. You all sing "to guide us with the light of love". The clue is in the rests. Look at your rests compared to the alto rests.
4. For Unto Us a Child is Born: Wowwowow! It's scary but we have conquered it! We sang all the way through and didn't get lost. We didn't all get every note, but together we got it all. If you have some time at all to do some extra work, work on this. Donna has made a recording for the basses of page 2 only to give you your melisma really slow. Everyone else, you can open that word document for a link to a recording on YouTube of your part.
5. In the Bleak Midwinter: More awesome solos! We reviewed the second page (page 4), and then did the whole song from the beginning with the solos and ending on the last page. I was so amazed at how well everyone did! You nailed it. It's such an impressive arrangement of this song, and very "choral". You all impressed me. The solos were perfect, Lauren and Melinda both a little out of their natural, comfortable range, but excellent.
6. O Holy Night: We had a back-up solo situation and it went swimmingly. I absolutely love this arrangement of O Holy Night. It's so dramatic. You've got this. It's big but not difficult, especially when so many of you know it so well. New folks have good leaders to follow.
7. Why We Sing: I like having everyone sing the beginning. Just be sure to sing softly and sweetly, but clearly. I want the audience to get the words. And, I want us all to feel the words, to feel the blessing that we get every time we sing together, and the power of our efforts together. This is why we sing. The big ending with the descant part is so powerful!!! Love it.
We talked about:
November 11th. We don't have our rehearsal space, but we were saved by the women at St. Elizabeth Seton Church. They've asked us to come and entertain them after a meeting. We will have a space to rehearse before for 45 minutes, so we can sing some of the stuff we need to do for our concert in December. Then, we sing for 45 minutes, including a few sing-alongs. There is a lot of information on our Calendar. The order is there, the address and a link for your map, and I'll update it when we have the timing confirmed. You do not need to sign up for this extra performance. It's a rehearsal night and everyone is expected to be there.
Choir Uniform: black bottoms and white tops with a red scarf. If you're new, you'll get a red scarf to keep to wear every time we perform. There's a page on the website about our concert wardrobe. You can also look at the photo gallery to see how we look when we perform.
Cool development: Men can wear our scarves instead of ties, for comfort and so they can wear a potentially cooler shirt, as long as it's long sleeved. In the past, changes in the uniform were a huge big deal hotly debated at annual general meetings, and voted on. This was a painless change and it's good to have a gender-neutral uniform. I am very grateful for our bass section!
Next week, Tuesday, November 4th
6:30 Mary Did You Know/Breath of Heaven
- Angels Among Us
- For Unto Us
- Let There Be Peace
- Dona Nobis Pacem
- Peace on this Silent Night
- Song for a Winter's Night
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