I'm so happy to be back at choir!!!
It was wonderful to see so many of my choir friends again after a long hot summer. It was a good summer, but I'm really ready for this cooler weather and singing every Tuesday evening again!
We're having another 30th Anniversary Celebration! Why Not? We do two very different concerts every year, and this is our 30th Winter Concert Season. We're going to sing winter songs and, naturally, Christmas music. Yay! I love Christmas music.
This week, we had returning members registration. It went very smoothly and we got our binders and updated our phone numbers and email addresses, and we're set. Don't worry if you were away, we'll be sure not to give your music number away.
Next week, we will have new members starting! Yay! New members are asked to come at 7:00 for registration. We'll try to start on time at 7:30.
We started our rehearsal with a few stress-relieving exercises and some good breathing stuff. I'm trying out a few new things I've learned. I like the "dive" breathing exercise where you hold your hands together above your head while you breathe in, so you can't lift your shoulders and you have to fill your abdomen to get a good big breath. We did some short and gentle vocal exercises with the breathing.
1. In Our Town in December: a simple and sweet opener. It talks about the different things that people do and celebrate in December, and the climax is "Singing Peace on Earth". Our secondary theme is Peace. All of the traditions in December are about family and community and peace on earth, and so is our choir. If everyone sang in a choir, we would have peace on earth. Please remember to mark your music with our special ending. We'll go over how to do that next time. (ad lib notes, and pencil!)
2. Let There Be Peace On Earth: our theme. This one has a lot of pencil marks on it because we've done it so many times, and probably never twice the same way. We have a solo/small group descant, and two possible endings. We have alternative lyrics. We have tenor and bass parts that we re-write. We reviewed parts, up to section F. But, we'll do it again once the new folks are there. I'm not sure, but I think I might want the second, quiet, ending. I know; it doesn't sound like me. But, it's more dramatic, actually. We'll see.
3. Various Themes on Fa-la-la: OMG! This is so much fun! It's such a good piece because we get a ton of classical music in one big medley and it's also pretty funny. Humour and Classical themes. Perfect. We just did a quick run-through, to remember that we have to work on the transitions but the parts are not too difficult.
4. Song for a Winter's Night: This will be more fun this year because we're doing the oohs! But, not the oohs on the first page, we're skipping that intro and using the one Donna made for us last time, four bars only. And, we're not having solos, so we all get more melody too. The top of page 10 will be different this time; we're going to sing it as written, with the oohs. It will be so good!
5. Angels Among Us: New! We get a new song because it was a small group in the past, so technically, it's not new. A number of people had never heard of this song, so I'll put the YouTube video of the Alabama version below, but you can always go to my YouTube Channel and look up the YRCC playlist for the season to find the songs we're singing, often with old recordings of the YRCC!
Renate's YouTube Playlist for YRCC 2025 Winter
6. Why We Sing: This is why. This is our ongoing theme: singing is good for so many reasons! It's mostly good for us, those singing, but also good for the ones we sing for. We are bringing back the descant this season! First sopranos will sing on top for the big ending. It's so big!
Next week:
- Angels Among Us
- For Unto Us a Child is Born
- Let There Be Peace On Earth
- Song for a Winter's Night
- Various Themes on Fa-la-la
No comments:
Post a Comment