Advent 2024 - Magnificat

This Advent I am singing with a new choir in town - SOLI DEO GLORIA. What is amazing about this choir is that anyone who has a desire to sing Oratorio music can join, no experience necessary. This group sings with joy and passion of the amateur; that is doing it for the love of the art form and not as a job. I think you will be able to sense this at our performance December 1st!

We are performing 2 works that work together well thematically and span the centuries. First is Bach, Cantata 142 Uns ist ein Kind Geboren which proclaims the baby who will save us all has been born. There are beautiful arias, a great orchestral opening movement and 3 choral movements. Short and joyous and so very Bach - it will snag you immediately and pull you along all the runs and trills - completely exhilirating! Then will come Rutter's Magnificat. Opposite to Bach. First of all, unlike Bach, Rutter is a living composer and British. Though both are fans of the accidental and both have settings of the Magnificat you will never mix up the two. Bach has been my friend since I was a little girl and so before the orchestra has completed the first bar I am already in love. Rutter is a composer I have only learned to sing as an adult and I find all his time signature changes and occasional dissoance difficult to sing. I have to work so much harder at it - yes, as I mentioned - amateur choir. Still all the rehearsals have paid off and I have come to appreciate this piece very much. I am impressed with Rutter's very deliberate matching of music and text. First of all what is Magnificat? It comes from the opening lines of Mary's joyful prayer upon hearing the news that she is the to be the Mother of God's son. She begins, "My Soul doth Magnnify the Lord" How this newly pregnant teenager could rejoice instead of lament is one of the biblical mysteries. In Rutter's musical setting of Mary's words you will find incredible word painting. Mvt. 1 - My soul doth magnify the Lord: and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath regarded the lowlineess of his hand-maiden: for behold, from henceforth All generations shall call me blessed Although we will sing this in latin you will immediately experience the exuberant joy in the opening lines, the lines about the lowly hand maiden will be subdued and beautiful. The music beautifully matches the text throughout this work. In mvt 5 you will immediately tell when the haughty are being scattered by our rapidly descending phrases followed then by the gently raising up phrases as the humble are being exalted. Wow, Mr. Rutter, such a perfect marriage of music and text! In the 6th moement comes the healing balm of the phrase "Suscepit Israel puerum suum" - (God in his mercy has helped his servant Israel.( I am close to tears when singing this line or when the soloist sings it, oh yes, there is a beautiful soprao solo in this piece, as there should be! Whoever heard of Mary being an alto? Marni Enns sings these lines beautifully! She alone is worth the price of admission. When you are sitting in the pews you will find your own striking examples of words and music working together to communicate the message of a young teen-age girl's outpourings so many years ago. Though the choir is ameteur the conductor, orchestra and soloists are not. Yuri Klaz will conduct the dynamic orchestra and soloists and weave us choristers into the mix with his magic baton. Come and experience the joy!

Passion Performance Preparation

This post is a glimpse into how I prepare for a performance during passion season. Tonight the Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir is performing two beautiful works with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. They are Te Deum by Dvorak and Brahms' Requiem. I started the day by mixing up my Paska dough while listening to Bach passion chorales. The Paska receipe comes from Irmgrad Baerg, beautiful accomplished pianist who I admire greatly. While the dough rises I spend 20 minutes on the treadmill while simultaneous watching a Te Deum performance on youtube, link above, and singing along, confirming that I do have it memorized - hooray!

This is my first time singing this work, in fact prior to rehearsals I had not even heard it. I must say it is a beautiful composition ; very joyful! Our performance is very much enhanced by soloists Lara Ciekiewicz and Greg Dahl. I have heard them both perform many times and performed other works with them and they add a lot of sparkle and pizazz! Lara is always generous with praise for the choir which aids in our performance. We especially need this type of endorsement as our conductor, Yuri Klaz, is not really that impressed with us, having numerous complaints about our intonation, timing and dynamics. "A right note at the wrong time is a wrong note" It may interest you to know that a wrong note at the right time is also a wrong note. Since his visage is more glowering than glowing when he looks upon us from his podium, we are lapping up any praise we can from soloists and orchestra to keep us going. Personally, I have prepped by using www.cyberbass.com in the initial stages for the Te Deum and when that is mastered I sang along with the video recording above and my score, to eventually be doing it sans score. Of course, what one can manage in one's own living room, fortified by red wine, is not always replicated on the stage with the orchestra blasting all their insturments. The altos are placed very closely behind the trumpets and trombones which can be quite distracting at times, what with all the blasting and saliva. Also they are a rather jocular group telling jokes between blares. For Brahms I did not need to prep with cyberbass or recordings because it is a work I am very familiar with. I did however have to spend time doing excercises that gradually crescendo and descrescendo. Practically every bar of this Requiem has a crescendo and descrendo in it - which one must pay attention to but we fail at this over and over again. During rehearsals many of us just blast right through 2 bars, then go subito piano. It is difficult to maintian this constant rise and fall but it is what Brahms is all about. At last night's dress rehearsal I think we mostly managed this correctly. When you come tonight I would be interested to hear your feedback on this point. One of the highlights is to see how much our conductor basks on the podium to the sounds coming from the orchestra. There is a beautiful dynamic between orchestra and Yuri that is satisfying to watch. He is really in his element jabbing his baton and casting magic spells. The musicians are showing him respect and a spirit of collegiality abounds. This is far from always the case and it is thrilling when it happens!

Messiah - 2021 Many Firsts

  YAY! Wish come true, I did get the invitation to sing in the Messiah with the WSO this year. Though, nothing is the same as it once was.  Yes, it is true that we have sung the Messiah before, but never like this.  The following is a list of what is different this time around.

1.  Standing far from other choristers.  What's good about it?  I have space to breathe.  What's bad about it?  I have so much space to breathe I can't feel my neighbour inhaling thereby reminding me to get ready to sing.

2.  Wearing masks.  Good because conductor cannot see if I remembered to come in or not, and also I can yawn mid performance and nobody will know.  Also I find masks to be a great wrinkle remover.   Bad because the audience will certainly hear muffled words and how will they know I am smiling broadly during 'WONDERFUL COUNSELLOR"?

3. My Cousin, Matthew Dalen is singing the tenor solo part!  Ok, actually my cousin's husband, if you want to get technical. The beauty of this is that there will be many family members in the audience and I can pretend they came to hear me!  

Alto soloist is Kirsten Schellenberg, she of the velvet let-me-wallow-in-it voice. Soprano is Jessica Kos-Wicher and bass is Neil Whitehead.4. Dr. Janet Brenneman is the first local woman to conduct the WSO!  She is rehearsing us and performing with us.  I have sung under her baton many a time, for various works, and certainly the Messiah is one of them but I have NEVER performed under her baton.  It will be interesting to see how performance Janet compares with rehearsal Janet.  

Dr. Janet Brenneman (photo from CMU website)

Rehearsal Janet is well organized, efficient and relaxed. She is in her element. What I do know about performance Janet is that she will look like a million bucks, and will sport a commanding lipstick shade. Hopefully she will be unmasked. I am looking forward to experiencing all these firsts on performance night which is December 5th at the Centennial Concert Hall in Winnipeg. Get your tickets from the WSO Box Office.

Post COVID Choral Life?

 

Vaccination rates are above 50%, Winnipeg Blue Bombers are planning for full capacity crowds at the stadium and maybe, just maybe choral singing will return in the upcoming concert season.  It looks to me that the Corona Virus, named Covid-19, nightmare is coming to a slow end. ( I hope I did not jinx it by writing that.)   For the duration of the Pandemic choral singing was deemed to be a highly dangerous activity.  One of my choirs continued with a Corona version of itself and we recorded in small, masked voice part groups and our conductor was reduced to a sound mixing engineer.  This was better than no choir at all, but just barely.  The other 2 choirs did not even do this much, although one had a sing-along on Zoom, with us all on mute and singing to a recording which again, was better than nothing, but even less satisfying than the masked voice part recordings. 

When I looked through the upcoming Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra program I was delighted to see three choral concerts!  Handel's Solomon, Handel's Messiah, and Berlioz Mass.  I am hoping to sing in the latter two and am excited to attend the Solomon.  Ever since reading Jane Glover's book, Handel in London, in which she goes into some detail on his compositions, I have questioned why so few of his Oratorios are performed in Canada.  Perhaps, it's not just Canada but the whole world that is missing out?  Hopefully the WSO's inclusion of Handel's Solomon is the beginning of more Handel choral works to come.

A much more important question is:  Will I be included?  Will my conductors want me back?  Has this forced sabbatical given them an opportunity to discard singers?  Am I one of these?!  Will they realize that altos are easy to come by?  No need to stick with the old.  These anxious questions sit behind my latest need to do choral warmups in the shower, join Voce8 in their virtual rehearsals, sing the melisma passages in For Unto us a Child is Born and hold daily Happy Hours where cocktails soothe the anxious beast.  In answer to all the enquiring minds out there, yes, I sound much better after cocktail hour. 🍹🍸🍹

I hope my attempts to get in some kind of choral shape will be rewarded by a summons to sing with the WSO again and be allowed amongst the choristers, which is the most glorious place to be!  Everyone knows heaven is just one big angelic choir!  

CORONA COVID-19 CHORAL CHRISTMAS

 

What a disappointment.  Christmas 2020 was to be a high choral point, booked to perform Bach's Christmas Oratorio with Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra players and the vibrant Ms. Brenneman at baton.  Cancelled.  Bah Humbug!

Instead I sang some Christmas Carols in my closet into my iphone microphone and sent them off to my church conductor at First Mennonite, where he tried to mix this and 20 other tracks into a whole for the Christmas eve church candle light service.  When one is doing their performance singing alone in the closet one needs to keep the end result in mind and imagine fellow singers around the city doing likewise, or else it is just too depressing.

This Christmas Eve day, I could not travel to the country to spend the day with my in-laws so I did this:

Brought my blue Baerenreiter score to the treadmill, put on this performance of Bach's Christmas Oratorio and proceeded to walk and sing.   Usually I watch Karajan and his impressive sing- from- memory choirs but this choir from Lucerne was holding the same score I was so they made me feel welcome.  Benefits of this type of performance over traditional one.

1.  Lack of breath control?  "Uh, Maestro, I am on a treadmill don't you know?"

2.  I was able to give the bass soloist support during Grosser Herr, Starker Konig without the conductor kicking me off the stage.  In fact, I am pretty sure he gave a nod of approval.  But it was hard to tell with sweat in my eye.

3.  Can perform the Jauchzet Frolocket whilst looking at the joyous faces of my fellow choristers!  Very fun!  

4.  Notice that the women, demurely have their scores open on their laps during arias while the men have them closed, thumbs in position and bright blue blasting from their laps. Classic.

5. Goes without saying that everyone in attendance loved my renditions of Bereite dich Zion and Schlafe mein Suesser with the support of the Swiss soloist on the screen of course. 

6. Doo-Doo- ed the first violin parts during introductions without consequence, although the guy in First Chair did raise his head and look around for a second, he did not give me the icy stare I would expect from the players here. 

Other musings while walking and singing:

When the flute began to usher the shepherds down their hills I missed seeing WSO's Jan, he of the great hair, rising from his chair,  Instead in Lucerne it was a woman around my age.  

Soprano soloist sang from the back balcony for her little part in Teil II and does not come to stage at all until Teil III  She doesn't sing in Teil 1.  Thanks Bach, for giving the alto soloist all the good part in this piece!  Even on my basement stage, a soprano I am not.

It was an ok way to have a choral performance experience but it was just one notch better than nothing.

Social Distancing and the Choral Life

This was a requiem season like no other in my choral life.  Due to health directives issued in response to the COVID-19 virus, it was a concert free zone.  That very condition requires a requiem of its' own.  Choirs have attempted ways to carry on in the new environment. I am sure you have seen the laughable attempts to hold a choir rehearsal on Zoom or even sing a simple Happy Birthday.  It doesn't work.
Besides the loss of not being able to rehearse together with others is the loss of concerts I rehearsed for but could not perform. Their dates passing without the requisite concert week marathon rehearsals preceding them and no dressing in performance wear meeting backstage in nervous anticipation.  Among these were Berlioz Messe, Beethoven Mass, Dvorak Te Deum all with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, a collaboration I treasure.  In addition was the much anticipated and so beloved Brahms Requiem with the First Mennonite Church Choir.
Some of these concerts are cancelled, some postponed.

One would think I had used my rehearsal free evenings to look at the scores and prepare for postponed concerts but one would be wrong.  The singing I have done, much too loudly, has been belting out tunes with Elton John and ABBA and I do a pretty good rendition of Brown-Eyed Girl.
My concert scores have remained closed receiving only glares as I pass them by.

Then came the unexpected.  My work-life mandated a Wellness Morning as part of a professional development day.  We were to watch videos sent by our boss, reflect on them, and choose a wellness activity in a mindful purposeful way.  This is easier said than done.  What to do?  Can't go for a manicure or a massage.  Could go for a walk but this is part of my daily routine already.  A helpful sister suggested I watch Judge Judy since hearing her call out, "idiot" can sometimes be as satisfying as a massage.  I realized that I would rather spend my mornings working than relaxing.  I am a work first, then relax sort of person.
In the midst of the stress of deciding how to practice wellness Haydn and Brahms called out to me and I got them off the shelf.  I laid out some of the scores of music I will, hopefully be performing in the next concert season.

Beethoven called out the loudest so he and I headed down to the TV where I pulled up a performance of the Mass in C.  This was not as easy as it sounds.  I am fussy.  I wanted one where I could watch the singers and the conductor, and I wanted them to be good.  Finding none with Herbert van Karajan, my go-to YouTube conductor, I opted for this one out of Germany https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UzITmh5BD0  I usually choose European choirs. The reason being they are most likely to sing without score in hand.  This choir, sadly did not.  Nor did the soloists.  Still I didn't want to waste anymore time finding the "just right" sing along choir.  

As the opening Kyrie began I became distracted by the treadmill visible from the corner of my eye, so I got on it and proceeded to sing and walk simultaneously.  The treadmill hummed in the wrong key, loudly, and my huffing and puffing did not allow for breath control required in most movements. This was less than ideal for rehearsal purposes, but since the performance of this will be way in the future it sufficed.  

Some pleasant surprises.  In spite of not rehearsing for weeks my vocal range has not suffered and my memory of the piece was solid.  Coming across my various pencil  markings made me smile and I took heed of them:  "tempo" "torturned soul"  "NN" (there are 2 n's in Osanna), the circle around the time signature 12/8 of the Agnus Dei and the ever present arrow pointing up indicating to not sing flat. ( Oh dear, the cardinal sin that requires a blogpost of its own.)  When at last we reached the Dona Nobis pacem, the anguished demands and cries for peace, my soul was moved.  Beethoven was writing this during the Napoleonic wars therefore his cries have gravitas.

After the applause and the soloists and conductor had taken their bows I got off the treadmill feeling grateful to Beethoven and all performers who have kept his music alive over the years.

Did I derive meaning from choral music without my choir?  yes.  Is it enough?  No.  I yearn to gather with fellow choristers and look forward to the first post COVID-19 rehearsal.  What a day of rejoicing that will be!

Requiem Report

Here I am in the slump between Requiem season and Advent.  Yes, I know it is a rather long slump and it surprises me every time how sad I feel after the last big performance of the season.  By now you know I need to be working on a choral work, no matter how busy I am in my other life.  I won't be rehearsing a major work until September!
One way to get out of the slump is to relive the recent choral experience by writing about it.
VERDI REQUIEM -a choral highlight was performed in March 2019 with the CMU Festival Chorus and the Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir conducted by Daniel Raiskin. I had earlier worked with Raiskin, notice how I can say that even though he is oblivious to my existence?  I continue to be intrigued by the individual chorister's knowledge of the work personality of a conductor while he/she remains ignorant of the individual  chorister and sees only this large mass of singers.   So back to Raiskin.  I was looking forward to working with him again because I had rehearsed and performed the Messiah with him in December and found him to be an excellent conductor for choirs!  This was a surprise because many orchestral conductors are not so.  Raiskin has a very clear beat combined with passion and the occasional jumping jack from the podium.
The venue, however, was not ideal and although the chorus was large we had to be slightly "miked".  This is not the best and some audience members did complain about the rather tinny sound in some parts.  This is because the Centennial Concert Hall is still without it's acoustic shell.  This is a travesty!

Giuseppe Verdi

Still the Verdi Requiem is a dramatic, grand scale work, with soloists and a huge orchestra and choir blasting away together, and then plaintively coming apart.   It is stunningly beautiful in parts and also downright frightening in others. I was thrilled to have a 2 night performance of it!  In fact I wish I were part of a permanent installation of it so I could sing it night after night to my death!  The Verdi does not come around that often, I sang it last 5 years ago, so I don't know how many more Verdis I will be allowed to be part of.  5 years from now I will be quite an old lady and the thought of being rejected from the choral stage is anxiety producing!  Mama Mia please let there be a few more Verdis coming from me!

Anton Bruckner

Bruckner Requiem is the next piece I worked on.  Never heard it before and yet I liked it from the first rehearsal on.  It has some beautiful parts in its short little life of 30 minutes.  Most notable is the men's chorus singing Hostias.  This work was performed with my wonderful non-auditioned church choir and a small orchestra which boasted WSO players amongst them.  Soloists Anne Marie Dueck, Karis Wiebe, James Magnus, and Howard Rempel were lovely!  The stellar Yuri Klaz was our conductor. It was truly enjoyable to learn a new work.  Alongside it we also presented Mendelssohn's unfinished oratorio, Christus.  This follows the Bach passion recipe of a tenor evangelist, (James Magnus) narrating the scene of screaming chorus crowds.  First Mennonite Church Choir loves performing anything by Mendelssohn and so of course we only wished it was a finished Oratorio so we could sing more of the same!  If you clink on the FMC choir link above you will hear us in a performance of Christus.

Now that it is over I must look ahead and see what is on the choral horizon for me.  I certainly will be joining the incomparable Jane Glover in presenting Messiah in December 2019 and I am crossing my fingers to receive an invitation to sing the Berlioz Messe Solennelle.  A work I have never sung nor heard until just now when I used it as my soundtrack to write this blog post.  Fingers crossed that next year at this time I will be performing it!  It's on the WSO listing for April 24, 25, 2020!

Messiah 2017

G. F. Handel

This year is the Messiah that I almost didn't perform.  Some would say that is hardly a sad thing, but this chorister has yet to tire of performing Handel's great oratorio.  This great composition never languished in dust, as Julian Pellicano mentioned in his pre-concert talk to the audience, but was performed the year it was composed (1741) and every year after that.  I am thrilled to perform it over and over again. (although I came on the scene a few years after composition)

Imagine then, when earlier this year I scanned over the Winnipeg Symphony Season catalogue and found that listed under Messiah was WSO Chorus - a choir I was not a member of nor had ever heard of.  I went into panic mode!  Who was this choir?  Who was the conductor?  Why were the usual suspects (Winnipeg Philharmonic and Mennonite Festival Chorus)  taken off of this gig?
I messaged the WSO executive director who replied that the board was just looking at different choirs.  "yes", I anxiously replied, "a change can be good but who is this WSO Chorus?  It is their name that scares me!!  It sounds like if you ever want to sing with the WSO again you best be part of this choir."  To this there was no reply.

A few weeks later a friend texted me an image of their TV screen and on it were the words WSO Chorus auditions and an email address.

You can bet I emailed that very minute hoping to get in on my resume alone.  This group would have none of that and rather insisted I send in an audition.  They wanted to hear two choruses from Messiah.  Two from an approved list of 3.  Oh brother.  By now it was summer and my voice was in relaxed mode.  Having not sung for weeks I felt quite out of shape, vocally.  I sang around the house for a few days and then proceeded to record myself singing along with a recording.  Now, as my family knows, singing with a recording is what I do best - haha!  I blast out every choral part I can and of course bellow along with the soloists too.  So it was with my audition recording.  Yup - when the chorus was done the bass soloist and I rang out, "Thus saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts" OOPS!  Now what?  Not being very electronically savvy and not wanting to re-sing the piece as this had been my 3rd go that afternoon, I decided to send off the recording with this very embarrassing bit at the end, indicating that I was also auditioning for the bass solo part.
After a few agonizing weeks of waiting I received the joyous news that I had passed the audition and was now a member of the WSO Chorus!  I was elated!

I arrived at the first rehearsal much like a young soccer player arrives at the provincial team's first practice. Happy to have made the cut, but anxious and insecure.  This feeling was palpable in the rehearsal room.  We were competing against each other, scared someone would take our spot, worried we wouldn't measure up.  There was not the usual choral camaraderie.   There were only 2 familiar faces in the room, which was odd considering I have sung in choirs in this city for 4 decades.  The 3 of us were from the Mennonite Festival Chorus which has performed the Messiah with the WSO many times.

The rehearsal conductor, John Wiens, indicated that this was only 70% of the choir and that the rest would come later.  The rest, it turns out, were members of Polycoro, a local elite choir.  This, 70% of second stringers rehearsed 2 or 3 times prior to having the pros join us.  For me the rehearsals were something like this:

first rehearsal:  I cried on the way home because the conductor had indicated, in my general direction, that vibrato was not a welcome sound in his choir. "Well", I thought," I guess I won't be singing in your choir then."  It was like telling a left-footed kicker that no left foot shots were allowed.  Now, I try to produce a straight tone and I know that too much vibrato is awful but I didn't think I was at that stage yet. So now I had two choices, I could quit or I could use his techniques to improve my sound.
After the tears I decided to keep practicing.  I took to heart his advice about balancing the body, opening up space at the back, letting the sound fall out, not worrying about sounding good,..etc. All the things my voice teacher, Diane Berger used to say.

Wiens Warm-up

2nd rehearsal: I thought I had landed in a choral comedy sketch.  John Wiens had us twirling our fingers around our lips then pulling hand back while pointing at ourselves and breathing out and then bringing our pointed finger right back to our lips while breathing in.  Say What?!?  I couldn't decide whether he was genius or idiot.  This was going to be a very different Messiah.  We second stringers were struggling to blend our sound.  In the soprano section was an 11 year old boy, in the tenor section was a woman, there were only 4 basses, among the altos was one old lady (that being myself) and a 16 year old girl.   I was singing about 50% of my capacity in order to blend with the voices around me, many of which had a Broadway musical sound to them, which it seemed is what he wanted.  On this ride home I predicted this choir would never be able to cut through an orchestra.  It is too small, and too weak.

subsequent rehearsals:  Then came the 30%!  And the difference they made was 100%.  Their professional voices were able to coat all of ours, fill in the gaps, and we began to have a blended sound.  I was feeling hopeful.  Voices like Sarah-Jo Kirsh in the soprano section and Sarah Hall in the alto took things up several notches.  John was fussy about voice placement and moved choristers around during rehearsals to get the right sound.  I had read about this technique but never experienced this in action and I enjoyed the process; because in the end I  received  two seatmates with whom I felt I could blend. I decided he was not an idiot.

 Our rehearsal conductor and our performance conductor, sometimes referred to as the real conductor, Julian Pellicano, were much concerned with this Messiah sounding crisp and light.  It had to be a contrast to many classic recordings of the works and to past WSO performances with larger choirs.  They were agreed on this.  Neither of them offered us much by way of passion or talks about their vision of the work except by way of technique. In other productions with the WSO there has been a fair amount of time spent talking about the message of each movement and how the text and music work together.  This was not the case here.   I do not know if this is peculiar to these two conductors or if this is  how one speaks to choirs with so many professional singers.  Still, I did use Ivars Taurins' (a conductor I have written about in past posts)  images of the various movements to help me and give me pleasure.  There were singers in this group who had never sung the Messiah and I wondered what they were using for inspiration.

It was this that gave me a revelation, (yes this old girl is still learning).  Technique and correct interpretation is enough.  The singer does not have to feel emotion to convey emotion.  The singer needs only to convey what the composer and conductor have asked you to do.   If one places the consonant at the exact right moment and crescendos and decrescendos at just the right point in the phrase, with the right notes in the right place emotion will be conveyed.  The singer's feelings are irrelevant.  The performer's attention to and execution of every detail is what counts.  

The soloists in this production were all local singers known and loved by Winnipeggers.  In my unprofessional opinion the soprano, Jane Fingler, sings the way she looks.  Angelic, pure and lovely. I do not know if her voice carried well in that hall.  Dan Peasgood was the counter tenor.  I have  never been a fan of counter tenors as they are competing for my job.  Isn't it enough that they can sing bass or tenor, now they want to go after my notes too?  I once sang in a choir with Dan and he is a very pleasant fellow but he kept singing my notes.  When I sing beside a man I automatically try and  harmonize with him and Dan refused to let me do this; he was always on my notes.  I am clearly not the one to assess his performance as to me, "He was Despised" needs to be sung by an alto. (said the alto) Tenor, P.J. Buchan was stellar and to my ears, far outshone all the others.  He was truly comforting in his opening aria and was brilliant in his "Thou shalt Brrrrrreak Them" later on.  The bass voice was Chris Kornelsen who was fine in his early offerings but in "The Trumpet Shall Sound,"  his voice did not ring out but was rather muffled. 

Julian Pellicano - WSO conductor in residence

  

It surprised me that on the performance podium Julian Pellicano was full of passion, mouthing and sometimes singing along with choir and soloists.  This side of him was not revealed during rehearsals.

By the end of the first performance some barriers in the choir had been broken and more smiles and words were exchanged.

There was no review of the concert in our local paper and I have not spoken with enough critical ears to know how it sounded in the hall but I enjoyed the view and the sound from my vantage point.  I am fairly sure it is the best soprano section I have every sung with.  They were able to beautifully sing high G's as mezzo piano which very few choirs can do.   I came away from this Messiah thrilled to have been able to sing with such fine singers, gratified that I had tried new vocal techniques, warmed by Handel's music and message, and grateful to perform with the huge talent that is WSO. 

Christmas 2014

   

Ivars Taurins as Handel

      So this Alto is happy to be in full swing rehearsals again!  As mentioned in previous post Ivars is coming back and we have begun Messiah rehearsals so as to be in good form when he arrives. He will conduct a Sing-Along on Dec. 12th in Handel costume and persona and the following day he will come as himself and conduct us in his characteristic exciting performance.  We have markings in most every bar so there is something to do with each and every note and when each chorister manages this you get a brilliant performance.  When he was here in 2012 I heard many positive comments from the audience.  The main sentiment was, "That was the most exciting Messiah I have every heard." 
      The WSO will hopefully remember that they liked him and won't give him their customary cold shoulder at the first rehearsal.
      At the choral rehearsals I have a new seatmate, and if you are a chorister you know how tricky that can be.  Some singers blend beautifully together and some don't.  Some singers lean too heavily on you and some allow you to lean.  I am happy to report that my new partner has a beautiful voice and is 10x the sight reader I am.  She is young and has not sung the Messiah before but this did not stop her from getting every entry and every note right.  I am sure I will learn that she is a professional soloist somewhere and was flown in to help us out.  On the other side of me is my faithful partner of many years.  We are obsessed with sitting together at every rehearsal and live in fear of being separated for performance.  Yup, we are those type.
 
    In the First Mennonite Church Choir we are performing Schubert's Mass in G which I have not sung before and so I am happy to have the opportunity and surprised to learn that I really like it.  This is the link to a good performance of it.  It is so simple but melodious.  That performance is Nov. 30th, 7pm at the church 922 Notre Dame Avenue, if you want to experience it LIVE.  Franz Schubert was but a teenager when he composed this Mass but us old timers will do our best to do it justice.

Summer Fallow

Here I am in another summer dry season.  No performances nor rehearsals.  The usual depression was staved off by copious amounts of German beer
whilst cheering on the German team during World Cup 2014. I share three loves with Pavarotti:  music, food and football. (soccer to our North American minds)
Now that Germany has hoisted up the cup I must return to normal life and this, said normal life, is harder to bear without the sweet hours of rehearsal in it.
What is a chorister to do? 
Time to look ahead at the upcoming Season.
1.   First off will be rehearsals for church Advent concert, but I don't know what that will be yet. 
2. in mid December will be Handel's Messiah with Ivars Taurins!!!  I posted about this great Handel conductor in a previous posting and I am thrilled he is coming back and is working with our choir again.  Now that we know what he wants, his markings still relatively fresh in our minds, we will certainly be able to deliver a memorable performance.  Who can forget his unique musical marking of a squiggle over a group of notes.  Don't remember that from your theory classes?  Nope.  It is an Ivar marking meaning, "Do Something with these notes."  He also appreciates altos which gives him bonus points and clearly shows his worth as a conductor.  There will be two performances with the WSO, one will be a sing-along, which will have Ivars in Handel costume! Good times! 

3.  Britten's War Requiem in March with the WSO and Alexander Mickelthwaite, who, have I mentioned, is becoming better and better at conducting choirs and seeing that we are also part of the concert.  He has also raised his passion up a few notches and so I find him less Peter Pan-ish than I used to.  This will probably be the most challenging work for me in that it is not from the baroque or classical period and I have never performed, rehearsed, nor listened to this work.   The Symphony Orchestra season guide has this to say about it:
Using massive forces of musicians and singers, English composer Benjamin Britten had a message when he composed his War Requiem in 1961: “My subject is War, and the Pity of War. The Poetry is in the Pity...All a poet can do today is warn,” the title page shows in poet Wilfred Owens’s words, on which the work is portrayed. Owens was killed during the last days of World War I. Britten’s War Requiem is among the most powerfully eloquent testaments to Owens’s universal message of peace.
4.  Good Friday performance of Rutter's Requiem.  I have performed this once before but don't remember anything about it.  Last season our church choir performed the Rutter's Magnificat after which a conductor from the audience named us "the Rutter choir of Winnipeg", so I am confident that after many note slogging rehearsals we will be able to deliver a respectable version of this Requiem.

So what will this chorister be doing this summer? 

1. Sing along to favourite Arias in my living room just to know my voice is still there.  This last activity requires strategic timing, unless I don't mind my son bellowing in the background, "Turn that down! Stop singing!"
2.  Get a thrill when writing down rehearsal dates in my Calendar.  Might do this in two stages so as to prolong the pleasure.
3.  Listen to the two Requiems
4.  Perhaps order the Britten score

Beloved Brahms

On Sunday The Mennonite Festival Chorus 2011/12 rehearsed Brahms Requiem.  Ah!  Sigh!  To say I love Brahms would be the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  I do not only love his music, I love him.  Furthermore, Brahms loves me.  Brahms fell in love with several women in his life, and unlike the loves of Mozart, Brahms yearned for Altos!!  Yay!!   When does that ever happen?  It is very simple really.  I love Brahms because he first loved me. The fact that our conductor is married to a soprano was evident when during rehearsal  he asked,  "Why does the theme begin with the altos again?"   Oh Dear. 

In the Requiem Brahms presents the alto chorister with some of the most beautifully haunting lines to be found in choral music.  He lets them sing several passages alone!  He gives them a range of notes from the G below middle C to the E flat on top of the treble clef.  He has faith in the alto to navigate this wide range. 

The Brahms Requiem is a work that spoke to people from the very beginning. At it's premier in Bremen, Good Friday April 10th 1868, it was a huge success. It is reported that tears were flowing during the 4th movement and the audience left the cathedral with feelings of "awe and grace." (from Johannes by Swifford)

In fact, the Requiem spoke to people even prior to it's premier.
" In August 1866 Brahms was in Baden-Baden with Clara (that being Schumann) and her children.He finished the requiem except for the 5^th movement which was an afterthought following the premiere.

On a memorable September afternoon at Clara’s house he played and sang through the whole piece. Clara noted in her journal “Johannes has played me some magnificent numbers from a German Requiem…I am most moved by the Requiem: it is full of thoughts at once tender and bold. (p.309 Johannes)

I was touched by a reference to the Brahms Requiem in a book by Oliver Sacks called Musicophilia, Tales of Music and the Brain.  In the following passage the writer had lost a good friend (Lenny) to death but had never mourned this.

The performance of Brahms Requiem had a powerful effect on me. I went to Berlin thinking I would write about David Hume there..but..as the waves of music poured over me- listening with my whole body, it seemed, and not just my ears - I realized I was going to have to write about Lenny instead. I had been carrying Lenny's death in a locked package up till then, a locked frozen package that I couldn't get at but couldn't throw away either..It wasn't just Lenny that was frozen; I had too. But as I sat in the Berlin Philharmonic Hall, and listened to the choral voices singing (Brahms) something warmed and softened in me. I became, for the first time in months, able to feel again.

I feel this power of Brahms at every rehearsal and am usually on the verge of being overwhelmed by it during performance.  Two more rehearsals before we work with Alexander Mickelthwate on it.  I have performed the Requiem many times but this will be my first with Mickelthwate.  I am expecting him to be his usual non-demanding amiable self.  Performance at the Winnipeg Concert Hall, on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter.

Mozart Requiem

     I am grateful to be rehearsing Requiem, by Mozart again.  It is like greeting an old friend.  This will be my 6th go around with it and the third with this conductor.  This means that it will be stress-free.  I already know what the conductor wants in virtually every bar, I listen to the recording to and from work so as to keep the whole thing in my ear and that is probably all the work I will have to do on it at home.
     I am reading about Mozart's life as well.  The book I am reading now is called Mozart A Life by Maynard Solomon.  Last year I read the conductor Jane Glover's book, Mozart's Women.  Both books provide insight into Wolfgang's life.
     It is no doubt that Wolfgang was a child prodigy who astounded people wherever he went.  Not a child prodigy who burned himself out but rather displayed great creative genius in his adult life as well.  While I am aware of the genius, as I am reading, I am now more  affected by the immaturity and selfishness of Mozart's Father, Leopold Mozart who cannot seem to understand that Mozart is grown up and can have success outside of his Father's sphere.  He is unable to share in the joy of his son's success unless he can attribute it to himself.  Mozart does spend much time and energy trying to win back his Father's love and respect.  The two commodities he lost when he became a success outside of his Father's town of Salzburg.
      Mozart died at the young age of 36 while in the midst of composing the Requiem.  Although the Requiem was requested of him he often felt as though he were composing it for himself.  I quote form Mozart a Life by Maynard Solomon, "...Mozart began to speak of death, and declared that he was writing the Requiem for himself. Tears came to the eyes of this sensitive man..."
      As if to prove his prophecy true he did indeed die prior to finishing the work but  "Mozart's friend, the singer Benedict Schack, claimed to remember that in the early afternoon of the day of his death Mozart asked for the score of the Requiem to be brought to his bed and that he, Schack, Gerl (the first Sarastro) and Hofer sang through it up to the first bars of the the Lacrymosa at which point Mozart began to weep violently and the score was laid aside.:
  and also "on the day of his death he asked for the score to be brought to his bedside and said, "did I not say before that I was writing this Requiem for myself? After saying this he looked yet again with tears in his eyes through the whole work."
       Thinking upon this during rehearsals of the piece does give it a certain pathos. Here is a link to an excerpt from the movie Amadeus which shows Mozart dictating the score to Salieri, which has no basis in fact but did make a nice movie.  I love this scene.  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROllcRNrGI4
        As to the Requiem and it's relationship to the Alto I can only say, Mozart is no Brahms.  But then who is?  Brahms' Requiem is filled with delicious alto lines for the chorus that are often song alone and even when not it is a line with a large range and beautiful melody.  Of course Johannes fell in love with an alto or two in his life whereas Mozart was in love with sopranos.  Still, it is the altos who introduce the first melisma passage in bar 34 of the first movement so there is something to be savoured there.  In the 4th movement, Rex Tremendae, altos are again the first to sing the theme and are often asked to sing along with the tenors when they have their go at it since there are rarely enough tenors to blast it out.  Not sure if we will be seconded for this duty this time around or not. 
     If you are the alto soloist in the two quartet movements, (and I have been her many times in my dreams and in my living room), you do have the honour of beginning both of them by yourself.  The Benedictus is particularly beautiful.
     So it is that the alto section does not have much to do but to do their job which is to provide a springboard for the sopranos to leap up on, and a nice little filler cushion so that the tenors don't stand out too much and become grating. And yet...
     I love singing Mozart.  The whole work is melodious and significant.  The Confutatis will bring you to hell and the Lacrymosa will make you weep.  The Benedictus will soothe you and you will close with the longing for eternal rest with the Saints.  After all has been sung and done my soul will weep with gratitude for having spent this bit of time with the genius who is Mozart.

Jane Glover and the St. John's Passion

I have entered Concert Week and I am in the midst of the experience of a lifetime.  I have not sung a St. John's Passion with this much depth before, and this is my 6th experience.  (I had missed one in my previous posting of Bach's St. John's which was 1986.  at my age there is much to forget)
     Last night was our first rehearsal with the great Jane Glover.  With her exacting manner and clear and precise, British accented speech, she was able to shape the Passion in a way we have not experienced before.  She spent most of her time with the Chorales, which is a surprising as there are several large and somewhat difficult choruses in the work, but her emphasis was on shaping the chorales into the monumental human condition statements that they are.  In her opinion one could spend 3 months just learning the chorales.  We were to feel the guilt of our sins and the injustice of an innocent going to die for them and then "tell me about that, but privately."   Prior to each Chorale, and there are 11 she would say, "I invite you to put yourself in it."
      One of several shaping tools is dynamics and here she tried to wean us off of our habitual "mezzo quel que chose" as she put it.    We most definitely have to work on our pianos and pianissimos, although somewhat difficult with our 90+ singers.  I encourage you to listen to this beautiful example of a Bach Chorale, just so you know how achingly beautiful a Bach chorale from this Passion can be. 
      We made so many markings last night that I am not sure I will be able to keep my seatmate, who was absent, up to speed with all we learned last night.  We did not rehearse the "wohin" movement, as several from our Nonette were missing.  We will tackle it tonight and I am most nervous about it as well as eager, since I look forward to her further revelations on the piece. I am comforted by the fact that she herself admitted it is a difficult piece to get right.
     She is the third revelation of St. John's telling of the suffering of Christ.  The first being St. John himself who wrote down this powerful narrative, then Bach who set it to the most glorious music thereby richly enhancing the story and now Jane Glover who has added further revelation by her detailed and impassioned immersion into the text. 
     Prior to an instruction we were sometimes referred to as "my friends" which softens us up for all her demands.  I am actually thrilled by all the demands, it feels good to be worked so hard and expectations set so high.  It was thrilling.  There is nothing blase about the Crucifixion story and there was nothing casual about her approach to it. 
    Then there was the revelation of a clearer separation between the crowd choruses shouting "crucify, crucify" and the choruses of the high priests, for example, "Schreibe nicht".    Now the music Bach wrote for each does automatically denote a difference since in the Schreibe Nicht we are accompanied by flutes which don't really suggest a bloodthirsty crowd and fits the higher learned priests but when the choir treats both as aggressive rabble rousing choruses the lines between the crowds and priests are blurred. Yet this is often how it is done and never has someone provided such a clear image as to how this chorus is to be sung.  Ms Glover asked us to sing it "lawyer-like", we are the rational  people telling Pilate, "listen don't write He is the King of the Jews, but rather He SAID, he is king of  the Jews".   Somehow it is so satisfying to be able to communicate this attitude with one's singing voice, and then to also be able to be the angry mob shouting, "Not this one, rather Barabam". 
     We will back to rehearsing with Ms. Glover tonight and will do our best to bring some shape to our phrases, clarity to our words, and varied dynamics instead of our "mezzo quel que chose" .  Our homework was to read the words of all the chorales and internalize them.  She urged us by saying,  "I would rather you sang some wrong notes than not mean these words you are singing."