Choirs are wonderful instruments. It is the only musical genre whereby we can take the collective - a group of good musicians and make a really wonderful instrument. It is what makes the whole process so exciting for me. It is what still, after all these years, still really gets my blood going for both rehearsals and concerts.
But humanity being just that, human - sometimes everyone isn't on the same page. What I consider an intensively musical performance might not be that for you or, conversely, what you may think is our best work, might not cut it for me.
I think the luxury of having a lot of time to prepare (as in our November concert) followed by a very short time to prepare (the December concert) is catching some of us off guard. And if this isn't recognized and fixed right away, the music won't ever come off the page.
As of yet, the music for this concert isn't coming off the page. As hard as you are working in rehearsal, by necessity, we are moving so quickly that in many cases you are forgetting the technical things we worked at so hard to achieve the "sound " for the last concert. Things like the unanimity of vowels, singing through all the notes, singing the text, being sensitive to dynamic shading, and getting out of the score - I"m tired of looking at your hair parts! When I ask you to note a particular vowel colour on a word, I noticed on Tuesday that few of you automatically mark the word with your pencils, rather trying to remember that detail the next time we sing the phrase. Mark your scores more - it really is a sign of musical maturity.
I'd like us to do better - specifically next Tuesday and from now on. My expectations of each of you are high and although I genuinely care for each one of you - as people and as colleagues, when I am conducting the repertoire my only focus is the composers intent and the highest possible level of music we can make together. I do try to be sensitive to each of your personal situations and realize that there are times that families, work, life gets in the way of everything from arriving for a 7pm downbeat to attention spans wandering during the last 20 minutes of rehearsal.
For Tuesday the scores which everyone needs to spend time on include: There Is No Rose (Enns); Magnificat (RW Henderson). Some of you need to work more on Dormi Jesu (Daley) and Huron Carol (Anderson). We will also review Christmas Angel (Hanney) so if this is new to you, learn it for Tuesday. It is dead dog easy however I don't have a lot of time to spend on it. (Sheena already knows and has been working on the solo so we are in good hands in that department). Warmup will consist of the a capella verses of the carols: Once In Royal David's City and I Saw Three Ships (spend time on the latter - it moves quickly and there is a lot of text) Judith will sing the soprano solos.
I truly appreciate everything each one of you gives to this choir and I know you do it because you love to sing at the level we are singing. The difference we are making to choral music is being recognized - across the country. As the result of the Vinyl Cafe program where they played two cuts from the SOLACE CD, we sold over 37 CDs. I, myself had three emails from listeners across the country who heard the recording and loved it and some of you told me of emails and phone calls you received. I had an email from a composer in Australia, visiting Canada who heard us and wants to write for the choir - so make no mistake, we are making a difference. So my expectations will continue to be high - for myself and for each of you because I we need to continue to make a difference and contribute to the choral art.
