Messiah with Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra 2024

David Fallis is our conductor for this year's performance of Handel's Messiah. No, I cannot get sick of singing this work year after year if the likes of Maestro Fallis are still inspired by it why shouldn't I? He brought his interpretation to us with consise instructions - "Do you know what stripes are in this context?" (And with his stripes we are healed) "They are ugly and they hurt like hell. Sing that word that way" He also has us change our singing of the word sheep. We get to the 'p' faster. Many of his instructions had to do with singing the text more similar to our speaking - slight problem for me that my Mennonite speaking may differ from his native Torontonian vocalizations so my production of the article, 'the' may still be jarring for him. He brought a generalized more stately tempo to many of the pieces saying, "if you are confident in what you are singing there is no need to rush." This for the "Blessing and Honour section of the last movement. He also brushed over some of our more rehearsed marcatto passages. Most notable contrast from the 2023 Messiah is that the central soparno aria, I know that my Redemmer livith was NOT left out. Still shaking my head over that decision last year. Also, if you have ever wallowed in period dramas such as The Tudors or Borgias it will interest you to know that David Fallis has a lot to do with the feel of those episodes as he was their historical music producer! It is a delight to be working with him! I LOVE performing with the WSO and really, they are the premiere musicians in the city, but there is the odd time where they embarass me and their rehearsals with Maestro Fallis was such a time. The Instrumentalists close to me chit-chatted through his instructions and some never proved they owned a pencil and so, of course, at 2nd rehearsal there was confusion as a few scores were void of markings. Not sure why it is that guest conductors cannot be treated with more respect? Perhaps his attitude was too coolaborative for this bunch who are still pining the loss of Boreyko? Some instrument sections did not keep pace with his baton, which of course is hard to do when you are not looking in the general direction of the guy waving the baton. Keep in mind these players are getting paid to play this. Their rushing away with the tempo happened during the performances as well. Ah well, the composition and the message behind it transcended all. The audience was still inspired and nobody asked for a refund. This year we sang the Hallelujah Chorus sans score, which you wouldn't think was a big deal but you would be thinking wrongly. Winnipeg choirs don't seem to do much memory work and so it was quite something! Another first was having 3 performances instead of the usual 1 or 2, and I do believe the 3rd performance was our best! David Fallis stayed and chatted with the audience after every show which was just one of his endearing traits. The shows were held at Knox United Church as neither the WSO nor the Centennial Concert Hall has seen fit to purchase or repair the choral shell so needed for choir productions to be able to return to the Concert hall unmiked. There are some advantages to the Knox venue as it is gorgeous and gives the audience a more intimate connection with the orchestra and singers. For the choristers too, we are much closer to our conductor which I think provides us with security. I like to have eye contact with the leader during performances. Two problem areas with the venue are, parking and potties, as well as the rushed seating. Although perhaps that is also a good thing as one price gets you any seat. The audience members I spoke to were comfortable in that space. Overall, I am completely satisfied with the experience and am looking forward to Messiah 2025!

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.

Advent Season 2019

This Advent season I sang in two major concerts.  The first, on December 1st,  being a church concert with 5 small pieces.  2 Stanford Magnificat settings, 1 Schubert Magnificat setting, 1 Mozart Magnificat setting and Mozart's Coronation Mass.  Yes, all this in one concert.  We had beautiful soloists in Howard Rempel, Michael Martens, Anne Marie Dueck and Karis Wiebe, and a lovely little orchestra all under the direction of Yuri Klaz.
This was my first time singing Stanford, and although we are not Anglican I think our mainly Germanic choir did okay with is pretty pieces.  I do feel the these beautiful reflections of Mary, the Magnificat, are lovely words to sing out during Advent.

Maestra Jane Glover, this concert was my 3rd with Glover whose gaze can cut you to the quick.

      The second of my concerts was with the CMU Festival Chorus as guests of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, under the baton, make that, under the baton-less hands of the indomitable Jane Glover!  Jane performed the entire Messiah without baton and score!   She took some glorious liberties with tempo as in a grand ritard (not at the end) in the Hallelujah Chorus which she described as 'vulgar and Victorian" and thanked us for indulging her.  She called the opening of Worthy is the Lamb a choral recitative and declared there was no regular tempo there so we would all just have to watch her.  To the orchestra she said, 'I am still hearing bar line.  I want to hear syntax.  This is choral recitative."
      Her lovely expressive hands, body and face conveyed everything instrumentalists, soloists and choir required.  During "they rebuke" Ms. Glover's face was near collapsing, whereas in the "he trusted" movement she looked so vile and horrid that it scared even the basses in the back row!  Jane pays homage to Handel with every movement.  During, the soprano aria, "I know that my Redeemer liveth" Jane looked completely radiant.  She gave much of herself and expects, nay demands, the same from all of us!  She can be completely terrifying and is not one to mince words.  At the dress rehearsal, where conductors are always pressured by the union clock, she stated at the end , "there have been a lot of intonation problems in the orchestra tonight and if I had the time I should like to go over then but I trust you to take responsibility for intonation when you are getting paid."  Of course, this kind of talk gives a little boost to unpaid amateur choristers.
At the opening of our concert at the Centennial Concert Hall, Saturday December 7, 2019 the Symphony's executive director, Trudy Schroeder actually thanked the choristers for giving their time and talent to this Messiah.  This is the first time, that I can recall, the Symphony publicly thanking us like this.  It was very appreciated.
The CMU Festival, although able to perform great works, is a collection of amateurs who are all busy with their day to day lives and who sing for pleasure.  They spend a full work day at their real jobs and then come together to rehearse works as a labour of love.  When we perform, it is our happy place.   This is in contrast to the WSO players who are actually at work when performing and do other things for fun.
Soloists for this performance were Andrea Lett, soprano, Andrea Hill, mezzo, Zach Finkelstein, tenor and Stephen Hegedus, baritone.
You can read a review of the performance here.
MANNO, I MEAN, MENNONITE VS. LONDON ACCENT
A little tidbit from our first choral rehearsal with Ms. Glover:    Anytime we were singing a long U vowel sound such as in Hallelujah or the to of Unto Ms. Glovers discerning ears heard an umlaut.  She was quite visibly affronted by this sound.  She asked, quite incredulously, if this was a Manitoba accent and without waiting for an answer said to, "get rid of it."  Then it led her to tell, what she thought was an utterly hilarious anecdote about the mezzo Janet Baker who was so accustomed to singing Lieder that when needing a ride to the concert hall in London asked for someone to call her an Über.  Some of us offered some polite laughter but inwardly we puzzled, "you mean its not pronounced Über?"

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!

All Good Things 3 Times!

Two contrasting pieces, two French composers, two conductors, add in one orchestra and the Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir, in one French cathedral and you have a wonderfully interesting week!

Two composers and their contrasting pieces are Francis Poulenc's Gloria, at once playful and stirring and Faure's melodious long-lined Requiem.  Monsieur Poulenc's score has some French cinema / restaurant style music coming from the orchestra.  It was composed in 1959.  At the first rehearsal I thought I would never be performance ready as the musical lines which are playful in performance are just unpredictable accidents in rehearsal.

Francis Poulenc

As an amateur singer, a score full of accidentals and multiple time signatures like this one just makes me fearful!  With some one- finger keyboard pounding at home and time spent with my best friend, www.cyberbass.com, I came to be able to playfully hum all the movements from the Gloria while going about my day.  It really is in my ear, head and heart now.
 In movement 5 I couldn't help feeling that I was walking in Paris at night, the Notre Dame Cathederal near me, crepe stands around the corner, a cabaret in sight and Edith Piaf singing in my ear.  As an overtrack to that comes the soprano plaintively calling "Domine Deus"  (Lord God) "Qui tolis pecata mundi"(who takes away the sins of the world)  Here in the French night, plaintively and uncertainly calling out for redemption.  It haunts me.  I challenge you to listen to the opening bars of movement 5 and see if you are not immediately brought to Paris. Other of Poulenc's movements, such as the 2nd are light and playful, with the composer having imagined monks playing football (soccer).  The light footwork, passing back and forth, and the joy of the game are evident.
Our soprano for this concert was Lara Ciekiweicz.  Lara has a dramatic singing style which immediately draws in the audience.  Lara has a charming practice of sending a card on opening night to the choirs she works with.  I find this to be a nice touch.  In her earlier life, before fame, she was a chorister alongside me with the Mennonite Festival Chorus.

Lara Ciekiewicz

Gabriel Faure  

The second half of the concert was the melodious and comforting Faure Requiem.  The popular Pie Jesu movement is perhaps the best known and is only soprano soloist and orchestra. Faure did write a beautiful requiem here but he really did not give much for the alto chorister to do, and there is no alto soloist either. In  2 out of 7 movements I was forced to stand there, score in hand and mouth closed for practically the whole piece.  In the Sanctus the altos sing only the last two bars, literally!!!!  Does he have unresolved issues with an alto and this is his way of dealing with them?   I don't get it!  Why make us stand there while the sopranos and the men sound so beautiful around us, clearly stating, ALTOS ARE NOT NEEDED and then at the last Sanctus, giving us one note to sing just to round out the chord.  HUMPFF!

The altos do have a nice duet with the tenors in Movement 2, that is, it could have been nice, but as our conductor told us after the first two performances, "Altos you are having trouble with intonation, well, sorry but you are flat, I have to say it, sorry."  Not exactly the thing you want to hear.  I am sure not much changed at the 3rd and last performance but our conductor was much too kind to tell us this.  Maestro Klaz has a firm practice of only stating the positive, once there is nothing left to be done.  He will teach and coax and reprimand right up until the last possible  moment of the last performance but once it is done, he has left it all on the stage and will insist that you were absolutely lovely!

So the very odd thing about this concert is that we performed it 3 times instead of the usual 2 and that we had 2 performance conductors.  This, I have never experienced.  The two conductors, Alexander Mickelthwate and Yuri Klaz  are quite different.  This was Alexander's last choral piece as WSO conductor and most likely the last time I will ever work with him.  Although he is a very pleasant man and not demanding of the choir, he is seriously lacking a downbeat and for this reason I am always nervous when performing with him the last 12 years.   In fact at the second performance the second movement, yes the one where the altos were flat, he was so seriously off the rails that the tenors, orchestra, and altos were all in different parts of the score.  So, this second performance was on a Saturday night, but earlier that same day we had a dress rehearsal with the other conductor, Yuri Klaz, whose tempos were quite different from Alexander's and whose conducting style is so much clearer.  It is a challenge to  rehearse so thoroughly with director 2 but perform a few hours later with director 1, then the next afternoon you are back with 2.   I heard from many choristers that they wish Alexander had attended the third performance as he would have heard a more passionate and much more accurate rendition of the concert.  There was no uncertainty on entries or endings at this last performance which was a big contrast to the other two.
Lara was the soprano soloist for the Faure and Matthew Pauls, the baritone.

All 3 concerts were sold out and this is a thrill to a performer!

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. 

Schubert and Brahms

Franz Schubert

This month I was able to perform two pieces from the romantic period in one concert with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Yuri Klaz.
Klaz is primarily a choral conductor but has conducted the WSO on several occasions. 
It was heartwarming for this chorister to see that the musicians behaved as though they had respect for Yuri's musical ideas and a genuine warmth seemed to emanate between the orchestra and conductor. 
I have seen many conductors mount the podium and gaze out over this orchestra, I have seen more than one wilt and be meekly led by the concert mistress herself.  On the other hand  I have shaken in my boots as tongue lashings occurred from podium to timpani and condescending remarks were hissed out at various instrumental sections.
The rehearsals for this concert had none of that.  Respect for the music and one another was the hallmark of these rehearsals.  Instruction and response seemed natural.
This conductor even handled the union master's annoying penchant for stopping rehearsals at just the wrong time with good humour.

Even if this respectful relationship had not been the case I feel the music would have smoothed over any difficulties. 

The glorious pieces we performed, the we being the Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir, are not that often performed here in Winnipeg, and in fact it was my first time for either piece!  Given my age it may also be the last, which is truly a sad thought!

We sang the Brahms' Nanie and Schubert's Mass in Eflat.  Recordings of the pieces are linked to their titles.  The Brahms piece is a secular piece written for the funeral of a friend.  The text is a Friedrich Schiller poem. (same poet who wrote the Ode to Joy text)   It is written and was performed in the German language but here is the English translation of the text.

Even the beautiful must perish! That which overcomes gods and men

Moves not the armored heart of the Stygian Zeus.

Only once did love come to soften the Lord of the Shadows,

And just at the threshold he sternly took back his gift.

Neither can Aphrodite heal the wounds of the beautiful youth

That the boar had savagely torn in his delicate body.

Nor can the deathless mother rescue the divine hero

When, at the Scaean gate now falling, he fulfills his fate.

But she ascends from the sea with all the daughters of Nereus,

And she raises a plaint here for her glorious son.

Behold! The gods weep, all the goddesses weep,

That the beautiful perishes, that the most perfect passes away.

But a lament on the lips of loved ones is glorious,

For the ignoble goes down to Orcus in silence.

Just reading the text I can hear that it was meant for Brahms!

 

The Schubert mass, his last one, and in fact he died before it was first performed, is much more difficult to sing than his earlier ones.  I was quite surprised when I came to them that the fugues required a fair bit of work and were  trickier than one would expect of Schubert.  This made rehearsals fun, and provided great satisfaction when they appeared light and fresh at performance time - at least I hope so.
Schubert did not write much for the soloists to do.  He gave them only quartet /trio work and usually meshed them into a choral piece.  This meant that neither my voice nor body received much of a rest during performance, as there were no arias where a chorister could rest up!

The Philharmonic choir, most notably the alto section, was very welcoming to associate singers and I appreciate them for it.  I have been singing as an associate with this choir since 1980.  Back then they were known as The Winnipeg Symphony Philharmonic Choir and had their rehearsals at the concert hall with a grand piano.  Now they rehearse in a crowded high school theatre with an electronic keyboard and yet manage to yield good results!  Bravo!

small glimpse into 2016

I have not posted in over a year.  I miss reflecting on my choral experiences but I have been so busy with career and family and singing that I have not had time to reflect. 
A choral highlight occurred in the spring of 2016.  It may be THE choral highlight of my life.  I have performed the 15 movements of the Rachmaninoff All-Night Vigil under the baton of a Russian conductor.  What I say about that experience is this:
Luxurious, heavenly and profound.

Rehearsals were deeply emotional with profundo basses providing a deep foundation one could wallow in.  It is sung accapella and the long legato lines can be challenging.  The alto section is split into 3 parts and I was put in the third part which made me very happy.

I doubt whether this chance will come my way again before I die  so I savoured every rehearsal and every minute of performance, feeling extremely empty when it was done.

Christmas 2016

Christmas 2016 brought me another Messiah.  I have been singing many of these lately as the WSO has decided to make this an annual event.  It is kept interesting for the chorister by having guest conductors coming in.  This time it was Tania Miller who presently works out of Victoria B.C.
The choir loved her instantly as she appeared to be very impressed with our tone at our piano rehearsal.  She gave us many compliments and we responded well to her suggestions.  She was clear in her direction and in tune with the text.

The next day we rehearsed with orchestra and although I love the WSO dearly, they, true to form, were stand-offish with the Maestra.  To be fair, not all players reacted this way but there were clearly some with great looks of disdain.  At one point the first violins were asked to play their line in a different way (wish I remembered more details) and the concert mistress argued semantics with the conductor, "You mean do a fill in some term here?"   and  Ms. Miller responded, 'I doubt it is called that but if you want to call it that".  They were counted in again and the passage still was not up to expectations and the Maestra turned to the concert mistress and said, "Look, if it is too difficult for you you don't have to play it."
Woah!  Looks were exchanged in the choir loft and we were grateful for the anonymity choral singing provides. 
Tania had a stroke of genius in the second half.Sshe announced to the orchestra, "Oh by the way Andrey says 'hi" to you all."  Looks darted around the orchestra,  um, did she just say Andrey?  Oh yes, she did.  Andrey of course is the WSO god Boreyko who is worshipped by most who have worked with him. By invoking him and her personal connection to him the orchestra would have no choice but to comply with the Maestra's wishes at first asking.
Now, as a chorister it is possible I misheard but it is what I heard and there was more compliance from this moment on. 
The next day was dress rehearsal with the soloists and the choir could get used to the new "sits" ad "stands", as one must with each new conductor of the Messiah.   It  all went very smoothly.
We  then  had two evening performances, which I always appreciate over just one.
They both came across quite well, I think.  Handel always able to deliver!

Making the Case for Scaglione

Photo of CASE SCAGLIONE by Christian Steiner

I have just finished two nights of Messiah - yup - 'tis the season.   Our conductor was Case Scaglione.  I was singing it with the Mennonite Festival Chorus and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.   This was not our most inspired Messiah - that belonging to Ivars Taurins, and perhaps not the most strange and interesting interpretation - that was Noel Edison but neither was it lacking in charm.
It may have appeared slightly lacklustre as the orchestra was clearly void of most of its principal players and it seemed rather obviously so at the first two rehearsal. Adding to the less than stellar rehearsals was the Maestro's laryngitis which left him unable to make any demands on us. 

In spite of this I enjoyed the process because he was a very generous soul, conducting a good beat but never over conducting leaving soloists, players and choristers somewhat free.  He didn't make strong demands on diction but he strongly favoured legato singing and asked for it in places not usually required.  (Let us break their bonds, With his stripes, Amen, and others)  He blew us kisses from the podium and was generally kind with his praise.  He wanted more from the alto section and the powers that be should perhaps consider auditioning more singers for our section.

A distinguishing feature of his Messiah was, that he laid down his baton for the "And with his stripes" and conducted the choir bare handed and required no orchestra whatsoever.  Something he witnessed Sir Colin Davis doing in London.  A Capella singing in a concert hall is a rare event and I hope we pulled it off.  There was no critic, unless I count my husband, in attendance so no review in our local paper therefore not sure what the audience made of this feature. 

Although some may feel bored by performing Handel's Messiah every year, I feel lucky to be able to sing this great work under various batons and getting something new out of it each time.

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

Taneyev and Mozart

     One of the wonderful things about the Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir is that they open themselves up to accepting associate members for certain concerts.  I am pleased to say that I have joined them for many a concert since the 1980's and am doing so again for March 2, 2014.  On this day we will be accompanied by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and will be performing two contrasting works.       
     The first, St. John of Damascus by Sergei Taneyev, decidedly Russian sounding piece, while the second is the mass in C Minor by Mozart.  Rehearsing both side by side can be a challenge as one requires a full rich legato sound while the other a light and airy feel.  I sing the Russian much more naturally even though the language is unfamiliar the long mourning lines are part of my DNA.  Mozart, as they say writes for the voice, but it must be a light soprano voice. These long melismas of his in this work require a nimbleness that I may be losing.  Hopefully I will get it into my voice by performance time.

     Taneyev (1856-1915) was a student and later a friend of the great Tchaikovsky and was a concert pianist, being a Russian expert on Bach and Beethoven.  He was also a guest in the home of Leo  Tolstoy so he is certainly someone well surrounded by the Russian artistic types.  I love this work that we are singing, St. John of Damascus, it is also known as the Russian Requiem.  It is beautifully sad in that, oh so Russian of ways.  The lyrics are also written by a Russian, a distant relative of Leo Tolstoy, A.K. Tolstoy which begin:

 I travel along a path that is unknown to me,
I travel between fear and hope;
my sight is weak, my breast is chilled,
my hearing is dim, my eyelids droop….“

 
The short 25 minute work is full of love and compassion and is a meditation on the meaning of human existence, of life and death.  Play just a few seconds of the this link and you will be overwhelmed with the beauty of Russian pathos.  That is right, click on" Russian pathos" and Taneyev will be there for you.
     The  Mozart piece, written in 1782, is an unfinished work just like his Requiem.  We know the Requiem was never completed as Mozart died but why he didn't finish the Mass in c minor is a mystery.  He did write it to celebrate his marriage and had vowed to have a work performed at their first anniversary.  He did indeed premiere this work in Salzburg, a year after his marriage and his young wife was the soloist, but it was incomplete.  He never finished it and so, there we have it, we sing it in its incomplete form.  Yet another Mozart work shrouded in mystery.   I have never performed this Mass in C minor so I am delighted to have the chance to do it and to be accompanied by such a great orchestra and work with such a passion filled conductor as Yuri Klaz. The concert is on March 2nd at 3pm at the St. Boniface Cathedral in Winnipeg.  Get your tickets in advance.  Information at the concert link above, and hear both these works side by side.

Larissa's Requiem - Valentin Silvestrov

 

Valentin Silvestrov

  I am in the midst of rehearsals for the Winnipeg Symphony's New Music Festival(NMF).  The NMF is a wonderfully successful venture on part of the Symphony - a week of merriment and showcasing composers from our time.
     Participating in the NMF is a "hit or miss" experience.  There have been some works where I have positively blushed performing them, wishing I were not inflicting this tripe on the audience but there have been times of supreme bliss, such as Arvo Part's Hymn to St. Cecelia a few years back.  Also, for me, the music for NMF is always difficult in that it is completely unpredictable and filled with dissonant harmonies, so that my limited musical abilities are highly challenged.
     This month I am very moved by the offering of Valentin Silvestrov, the Ukrainian composer, born 1937.  I have been rehearsing his Requiem for Larissa, which he composed from 1997-99 for his late wife.  He had thought at the time that this would be the last piece of music he would every write and indeed his complete heart and soul seem to be in this piece.  Like the other NMF pieces I have done it has been difficult to learn, perhaps the most difficult piece I have ever learned, and yet I am not turned away from it, instead I am at times weighed down by the force of his grief.
     The piece begins in a most profound way, the opening bar is a bar of nothing.  No choir, no solo, no orchestra, not a single instrument.  It is as though Valentin is saying, "My wife has died and now there is nothing."  This nothing is not a nice 4/4 nothing it is a very off-kilter 5/4 bar of nothing.  Yup.  Not only is there nothing to say, this nothing has unbalanced him.  The opening page contains 12 bars and the time signature changes 7 times!  See what I mean?  The man does not know how to walk through life without his wife. 
     The first word sung is "Requiem", the second is to be aeterna (eternal) and for 3 whole bars he tries to finish the word but can't, in the end the women sing only "aetr".  This device, of not being able to finish one's words, is used throughout the piece so that we as choristers are often left to sing only "a, oh, mm"; there is much humming and many a bar ends with an "mm".  All this fragmentation, and leaps and descents of 9ths contribute to the unsettling feeling that all is not right. For me the singer, it is a great task.  Often one does not get much support from fellow choristers either since in the 3rd movement the altos are divided into 6 parts!  One voice section - 6 different parts!!  Challenging, to say the least.
     In movement 4 we get some reprieve from this as  a lone tenor, from within the choir (as the instructions state) sings a complete poem by the poet Shevchenko, evoking a lovely Slavic melody filled with beauty and pathos, although even here the time signature keeps changing so that I can rarely look off the page, even though the altos are now only in 4 parts. 
     The 5th movement echoes Mozart and it is so" Mozartarian pretty" that it is difficult to believe the master himself did not write it.  A lovely, lovely piece of music played in turns by a solo violin or solo piano while the choir attempts to sing the Agnus Dei, but all the accidentals, fragmented words and time signature changes make this difficult, but there is much encouragement and comfort in the beauty of the solo violin and piano.  The 6th movement is much like the first and then the 7th and last movement contains 90 bars of mostly orchestration; 4 bars have the choristers singing "Requiem Aternam" this time finishing the word, although the altos are not yet ready to speak and say only (o) for 7 beats and then 5 beats all alone on our (m).
     We have had our first rehearsal with the performance conductor, Alexander Mickelthwate, and I was surprised at how much he seemed into this piece.  With all the running around he has had to do rehearsing and learning new music he seemed to have a special place in his heart for this work.   He gave the choir some brilliant instruction and I feel the piece is really coming along.  We have 3 orchestra rehearsals now and then - Ta Da- it will be performance time.  Here is the link for the NMF website.  http://www.newmusicfestival.ca/wp/ 

Jane and Wolfgang

I have had two Mozart Requiem rehearsals with the skillful Mozart expert, Jane Glover.  Dr. Glover knows Mozart well, having studied much about him during the writing of her book, Mozart's Women.  She feels him in every part of this work and wonderfully transfers those passions to the choir.

She read to us a letter in which Wolfie consoles his dying father, saying that death is the only sure thing in life and something to look forward to and it is in that spirit that we are to sing the opening movement, Requiem aeternam donna eis domine.: with quite an upbeat feel.
In the second movement, Dies irae, we can feel that as his own death drew nigh fear of it did arrive as shown by the use of trumpets of which Mozart had a fear, almost a phobia about in his childhood.

The one truly sorrowful movement is the No. 7 Lacrymosa.That day of tears and mourning....It was during the composition of this movement that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died, in fact the last line he wrote was, "the guilty man goes to his judgment" and he was gone...from this point on in the music Jane shared with us that she always feels Mozart departing  and the ever ordinary Franz Xaver Suessmayr taking over the composition with Mozart's sketches in mind.   There is a floating quality in the music in the next few bars where Mozart's soul is floating up, then in bar 22 human rage at the creator begins, we are singing "dona eis Requiem" but we are in a forte rage at God for having snatched Mozart from us at such an early age.  Then in bar 27, exhausted by our rage we are somewhat resigned to his passing and our own eventual demise.

Ms. Glover has a way of transmitting this knowledge to us so that we too can feel all this passion. 
She spoke with us in a soft confidential manner about "good old Sussmeyer."  She said that she herself has never and will never conduct any other Mozart Requiem.  She works exclusively with the Sussmeyer.  She acknowledges admiration for the brilliant one done by Robert Levin and mentions German composers who have completed the Requiem with much more skill than Sussmeyer, but is is Glover's contention that Sussmeyer was sitting on the edge of the bed taking dictation from Mozart, frantically trying to get all he could from the dying man and then did an adequate job of finishing it.  "We cannot abandon Sussmeyer now.  He was there and you can't replace that."   All this even though his Osanna is mere few seconds where as Mozart would have given us a glorious 4 minute
one.

The fact that the Suessmayr version is somewhat ordinary is part of the charm of the piece.  It shows that the Musical Genius has died and now the ordinary takes over but with glimmers of Mozart since Franz Suessmayr did have the master's musical outline.

 

Jane Glover has a wonderfully collaborative manner about her.  When she arrived on the rehearsal stage she went to shake hands with a few of the musicians who, I presume, were not at her afternoon rehearsal.  She welcomed the choir and we felt as though each one of us was a valued contributor to bringing out Mozart's genius.   She repeatedly uses the phrase, "My friends", as in "That was very good my friends"  or "All right my friends let's take it from bar 23, all of us."  The orchestra is showing respect to her and seem to have an appreciation for the choir.  It truly feels like we are all in this together. 

 

 One of my favourite expressions of Glover's, which I remember from working with her two years ago, is the musical dynamic "mezzo quelque chose" used when really it is not a mezzo piano not a mezzo forte, just a "whatever".   She likes to tell us that in the Rex Tremendae movement there is no mezzo quelque chose; it is either forte or piano. 

 

She often refers to the men as chaps, which is very charming as she has this wonderful British accent.  She sounds charming even as she says, after an attempt at the opening of Confutatis - "Well chaps, that was rather feeble.  You will need to try it again and with the realization that your manhood is at stake."   Ms. Glover,  the sopranos and altos were impressed with the chaps' second attempt. 

 

 Her conducting style is very easy to follow.  She has a masterful beat stroke with very clear entries and finishes and yet a very flowing style. She knows what she wants from each instrument and each voice part and is unapologetic about asking for it.   I do so like working with her.

 

  Mozart and Glover are an inspirational duo to be spending time with during passion week.



Ah Mozart!

It is a Sunday afternoon.  I have been wallowing in Brahms for the last few weeks as I rehearse it on Thursdays and listen to it to and from my work.  Readers of this blog know I LOVE BRAHMS!  So it is with a "I am not in the mood for Mozart at all" that I take my place at rehearsal.  The conductor has the pianist play the opening measures and, SHUDDER, I am grabbed into a scary place and can feel the composers trepidation as the piano takes the listener to the choir's forte opening of "Requiem"!  I am overcome by the emotion in the work in a way that has me tearing up at several points.
The first movement of Mozart's Requiem seems to be a perfectly crafted piece of music that one would not approach too casually and certainly not with the bored air I took my seat with.  No!  This is a fine piece of music filled with uneasiness but also glimmers of sweetness.  Mozart is to have said, "I fear I am writing the Requiem for myself." and this sentiment comes through in the opening bars.

I have sung this many times so why do I forget this fact between times? 

The choir I am rehearsing with, The Mennonite Festival Chorus, is a joy to work with.  This is a group that seems to know that singing this music is an honour and a sacred task.  The music is approached with reverence.  Not that there is not fun and laughter, and even cookies and coffee at break, but there is just a general seriousness about the music that I don't find in every choir.

I am so grateful to be rehearsing this work again.  Performance is on March 30th at the Centennial Concert Hall with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and Jane Glover conducting.