Someone said to me Tuesday night, that there was a study done which stated that in order to perform a piece to the best of your ability, you had to sing it through at least 8 times. Given the original source, I have no reason to doubt the statistic, and if we take the theory to its nth degree, then we will have to sing some of the rep through twice on October 26, November 2 and at the dress on November 5 to achieve the magic number. Not sure if this is possible, however I do know that as most of the work is now complete we do need to sing through "Many Winters" many times to let the piece jell. Your work on Tuesday was concentrated and in the end, aside from a few glitches, we have the majority of the piece. So what we need to do now is review individually, memorize as much as possible and be able to get out of the score.
By now you all have my email re Jeff Enns' suggestion as how to solve the text question in m. 36 - 40. It should be an easy fix so take a look at what that it means for you re the text and make the changes.
I also talked to Peter Togni yesterday and I asked him to send me his thoughts on "Requiem et Lux" which I am including here for you to read and think about:. I believe it puts his piece in context:
" On January 17th 2009, the world lost a great Canadian painter, the 55 year old John Brocke. He was killed in a head on collision near his home in the Annapolis Valley. On that day I lost a dear friend who was always like a brother to me. I first met John when I was living in Calgary, in fact we were next door neighbours and shared many things, we even made wine together. John's paintings were huge, he was very maticulous so much so that he could only complete one or two paintings a year. His work was filled with his deep faith and with incredible light and hope. John and I had another thing in common, a great love for Russia, it's people, art and music. John had once visited Russia to meet with artists and to study icons. This Russian visit was very important to him and it influenced his work deeply. He was also very much drawn to the sense of pathos in Russian sacred choral music. Because of this I wanted " Requiem et Lux " to flow like a Russian Orthodox hymn. The first part is somber, human, full of tears with great passionate swells. The second half of the work moves into the light and speaks of eternity. "
In the next two weeks we have the opportunity to promote this concert in all kinds of ways. Dave J. made an excellent suggestion at the AGM after Tuesday's rehearsal - that we need to make better use of social networking to promote our activities. We're already doing this in Danielle's N.'s regular Facebook posts, (and many of you are doing the same by announcing the concert and selling tickets on your profiles) and our usual use of email to promote the concert to our address contacts. We have a fabulous new website which has the ability to accept ticket payments online - really easy and convenient so make sure you mention this to people. Twitter was another suggestion. But let's not forget about the tried and true methods: posters and flyers, announcing the concert to our church choirs and having our tickets close at hand to sell to people with whom we have everyday contact. I'm doing an interview with Olga Milosevitch the week of the concert and Tenille has blitzed the local churches, CBC and the press with a great PSA. The generation of a lot of talk and hype about the concert will pay off so please do not underestimate your role in all of this.
Thanks for your thoughts, your hard work both in rehearsal and at home and your obvious committment to this music. Please stay healthy, as from now on to the concert, I need everyone at rehearsals.
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