Elijah Huge Success!

Gregory Dahl

I have forgotten to post that the Elijah Concert was a huge success!  Sold out house!  The soprano, Tracy Dahl, was sparkling and sang with such drama one felt as though we were in an opera!  The tenor, Kurt Lehmann, sang with such lyricism and strong diction one felt proud to be part of anything he was in, Kirsten Schellenberg, alto, was solid as always, the boy soprano, Anton Sokalski (son of Tracy Dahl) was pure and divine, but the ELIJAH, who I almost forgot was Gregory Dahl, as it seemed the prophet had appeard amongst us - albeit in a tux.   Mr. Dahl was ELIJAH -" Thou art Elijah" I almost shouted at him, and watched him carefully at the post concert reception to see when the fiery chariots would take him away to heaven! 
Our conductor, Yuri Klaz, was so full of passion it was oozing out all over the place.  He did an excellent job at weaving the orchestra, soloists and choir together to tell this very dramatic story.  The venue, was a cathedral, so it offered the audience a much more intimate feeling than had it been performed in a concert hall.  I think this led to the excitement in the air.  As choristers, we could also see the faces of the audience and they fed so much emotion back to us that one could not help but get into the character we were to be playing at any given time.  Yuri Hooker's solo cello line in the "It is enough" bass solo, was so beautiful that I wished I were in the audience and could allow myself to be swallowed up in it instead of having to remain somewhat alert for performance.
A memorable line from our conductor at our last minute rehearsal was, "Altos, you are watching me and yet you are behind the sopranos."    To myself I thought, "Well, obviously the sopranos must be ahead of your beat."  I of course, said nothing, and feeling duly chastised I tried to remember to push the tempo throughout performance and I think all went well.