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!

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.