Happy New Year!

Thank you all for last night! It was a pleasure to be back with you and making music...right  from the first downbeat! I have missed this over the holidays and I felt refreshed and rejuvinated after the rehearsal.  I hope you are feeling the same.

Dave J. - It was good to see you last night. I'm sure you were on all of our minds over the Christmas break and I hope last night's music was able to bring at least a little peace - even if it was for a short period of time. Please remember your friends are here for you.

Reference Recordings: Sean now has copies of most of the reference recordings and I have asked him to send a quick email to the choir to let you know when they are up on the website and how to access them. Christina is working on the Finnish texts for the two Rautaavara pieces, the three folksongs, and the Russian and Doukhobor texts for the Raminsh pieces. She will forward them to Sean who will also put them on the website. My sincere thanks to Christina and Sean who are an integral piece to us getting our heads around these languages. The reference YouTube recordings I have compiled for the rest of the rep are listed below, and I strongly urge you all to make use of all of these resources.  (note: some of the You Tube titles have more than one reference recording so you can compare)

Benedictio – Urmas Sisask:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnB1rC5sq94

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vCXxyG9p8Q

Totus Tuus – Gorecki: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3qOBQ1ZkQM

O Crux – Nystedt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgx9VoDSXuQ

Ave Verum Corpus – Raminsh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLtvqUaseLA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMoCREW2qNk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLtvqUaseLA&feature=related (musica intima)

Northern Lights – Gjeilo: http://www.waltonmusic.com/wmsearchfrm.html

O Sacrum Convivium – V. Miskinis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Tilkv3qIk

Please note that as per my announcement last night, I will be away on Tuesday's February 15 & 22 and Christina and Tristan will be taking both of those rehearsals.

For next week please work on:
Northern Lights - Gjeilo
      write in text!
     quick review. Check that weird join from m. 45-46 on p. 8
Ave Verum - Raminsh (review)
O Sacrum Convivium - Miskinis
     write in text!
     know A sections: m. 1-21 & 35-end;  sort out out B section m. 22-34
Benedicto - Sisask (Tristan will rehearse)
O Crux - Nystedt  - soprano 3 part divisi from m. 33 on is as follows:
     S1: Elisabeth, Paula, Danielle K.
     S2:  Ann, Christina
     S3: Danielle N., Shona, Marlene
Psalm of Invocation - Rautavaara (from Vigilia)

I won't get to it next week but women please begin working on First Snow (Holten) This will be a tough one to tune as the parts are esentially the same melody in different keys but in canon.

As per my announcement last night, please confirm on your schedules, the St. Bernard concert on Sunday, June 26 at 4pm (this has been on the blog calendar for some months now, so should not be a surprise)

Have a great week and enjoy this music. It will sound sensational in St. Patrick's. And   again...thank you for last night!