Veloso Project auditions

How many blog entries must there be out there that start with "I know I haven't updated recently, but I've just been so busy..."

Anyways. It's a new year (because really, musicians follow the academic schedule, and the new seasons always start in September) and I have many new projects!

One of the most exciting is that I'm putting together a recording of composer (and close friend) Michael Veloso's choral works. This will be done in three segments - the first segment is three of his SATB pieces, the second segment is two of his pieces for women's chorus, and the last will be his first choral piece, Aether, for 8-part mixed chorus.

I just had auditions for the first segment - we'll start rehearsals next week, and be recording in mid-December. I put out a call on the local websites, and I got much more response than I expected. (In this town, if you offer even a little money for a gig, people are interested!) So last night and the night before were spent listening to many people sing for me.

It was surprising what I learned about myself. One thing is that I have opinions - I'm sure that nobody but myself is remotely shocked, but I frequently worry that I won't be able to hear enough, or that my ear won't be intelligent and discerning enough, to have an opinion. (This is a recurring worry with me, in many different contexts. It is thankfully proven wrong on a fairly frequent basis, but never seems to disappear.) However, we had a wide range of people come in to sing, and one of the most interesting things was hearing what a difference there was between people who studied voice and people who didn't. The disparity was stark, and I could get an idea of how long people had been studying, too. In other ways, such as tone and vocal production, I also heard wide differences. I had worried that differences I heard would be subtle, but I felt like I was hearing in primary colors.

It was also somewhat heart-breaking, because nobody's perfect, and some people's flaws couldn't make up for their spectacular talents. There was a woman whose sight-reading was flawless and phenomenal, but the quality of her tone meant that she wouldn't blend and I couldn't take her. That still hurts, because you so rarely find musicianship like that. There were a number of opera singers who sounded beautiful, and were obviously working on or already having professional careers, but the size and quality of their voices meant that blend would have been impossible. That felt ironic, turning people down for being too professional, or too well-trained. But opera, or any kind of solo classical singing, is a very specialized kind of singing, and if you concentrate on singing well alone, sometimes you sacrifice singing well with other people.

But I almost have a group together now, and I'm very pleased with the top three voice parts. I'm less pleased that only one bass auditioned, since I need three. Thankfully, the one was strong, but that's not enough. So please, if anyone knows of a good, solid bass with strong sight-reading skills, strip him, wash him, and bring him to my-- I mean, send him my way!

Boston Cecilia auditions

Hello, and happy end-of-summer to everyone! I come to you with a request for Boston-based friends.

Boston Cecilia is having auditions! If you know of any singers with strong sight-reading skills and good musicianship (or are one yourself) then spread the word! In particular, if anyone would like to print out the following POSTER and put it up at your workplace, pass it out to friends, post it at your church, etc., that would be great.

It is a matter of personal relief and pride (given the fact that I work for them) that I can whole-heartedly endorse joining this group. Don Teeters, the director, is really, really good. He has high standards, but he isn't nasty in order to get his singers to meet them, and he's a really fine and expressive musician. Also quite funny. And the people are nice and fun to sing with (and also completely addicted to sugar - I have never seen a chorus that has such candy-oriented snack breaks!)

So! Put up posters! Talk it up! I'm off to post on craigslist again!

O Mio Babbino

Did you miss the Boston Cecilia gala last month? If so, then you missed...

THIS!

Opera meets Doo-Wop. It's making the rounds. I suggest you watch! Ironically, I was out of the room working on something when the performance happened, so I can't say I saw it, but at least I was in the building.

(Thanks to Karen for nudging me to post it.)

Spring Cappella Clausura concert!

Come hear Cappella Clausura's spring concert! This is our final new program of the year - we have a BEMF concert in June, and a concert on Cape Cod in July, but those will both involve music we've already sung. The centerpiece of this concert is a Dixit Dominus by Marianne von Martines, a contemporary of Mozart. Also featured will be three pieces by Hilary Tann (who will be in attendance!) with some thundering organ accompaniment. This is also the Allegra show - Amy is letting me conduct one of the pieces, a Dixit Dominus by Isabella Leonarda (which includes orchestra!) and I have several solos - my favorite is the duet I get to sing with one of our sopranos who has a beautiful voice, and the one I'm most worried about is the one with lots of very fast old Spanish.

Here is the longer blurb, stolen from the website:

Cappella CLAUSURA adds a full baroque orchestra and a few tenors and basses to its core of singers and players to present what is believed to be the second performance ever of Marianne von Martines' "Dixit Dominus". This lively and delicious piece of classical composition was written to commemorate her election as the first woman to the Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna in its 108 years of existence. Martines was an aristocrat, friend and musical colleague of Mozart, whose musical accomplishments were much revered in her day. This excellently crafted composition includes some exquisite solos and duets as well as full choral sections. Together with this remarkable work, we bring you an exciting Dixit Dominus by prolific baroque composer Isabella Leonarda, for chorus, continuo and two violins, which we will play with full orchestra colla parte, and a Dixit Dominus for full chorus, with some verses chanted, by Juan de Araujo of Lima, Peru whose works reflect the lush and jaunty baroque style of the New World.

Opening our concert, in our tradition of championing new works by women, will be the US premiere of Hilary Tann's magnificent Psalm 86, "Incline Thine Ear" scored for full chorus, organ and trumpet, for the first time surrounded by its set partners, Psalms 136 for full chorus and organ, and Psalm 104 for chorus, organ and two trumpets. These are joyous works of praise and complete delight in all of creation’s beauty.

Meet the composer: Ms. Tann has graciously consented to be our guest at the concert!

The concert is at 8 pm TOMORROW night, Sunday, and directions can be found here. I hope to see you all there! We've been getting some good press in the Globe, etc., so hopefully we'll have a good audience! (Although part of me feels that the fewer people hear me butcher early Spanish, the better. Speaking of which, I'm going to go practice.)

Galas, galas, everywhere!

I have two gala benefits coming up in the next two weeks, and since both are for very worthy causes, I thought I should (belatedly) mention them in case anyone wants to attend either one.

The Cappella Clausura gala is happening this Sunday at 6:00 pm, and I will be singing a solo, as will some other members of the group. There will be wine, and dessert, and "musical enchantments" and it should be very lovely. It's being held in Taylor House in Jamaica Plain, and since Cappella was hosted there for a post-concert party once, I can tell you that the food they cook up there is amazing. Also, as galas go, it's quite reasonable, $45 for sponsor tickets and $75 for benefactor tickets. It's pretty late if you want to get tickets, and I should have mentioned it earlier, but I neglected to because...

I have been working my *** off for the Boston Cecilia gala, which will be a much more involved affair. Tickets start at $150 and go up from there. It will be held at the Harvard Club of Back Bay, musical guests are the GrooveBarbers (a group containing some of the founding members of Rockapella, including that guy with the blond braids on Carmen Sandiego) and there is both a silent auction and a live auction. When Cecilia members have mentioned the auction, they always mention the trips first (to Italy, South Africa, and various parts of New England) but I think they miss mentioning some of the most exciting things, such as:

• a Chocolate Extravaganza gift basket! Why is this not the first thing everyone mentions?
  
• a set of tickets to see a half dozen of the top choirs in Boston
• a private voice lesson with a pair of opera singers (I'm drooling after this one, but probably can't afford to bid on it, although I threatened to Don, our musical director, that I might stand near it and make disparaging remarks to keep the price down, which of course is the opposite of the point of a gala auction)
• and, OK, I confess the Tuscan villa looks pretty cool

At any rate, go check out the auction page, which I had to find all the pictures for. And consider coming! If all the other amusements fail, you can laugh at me hobbling around in strappy heels for an evening.

Schola Cantorum concert

Hear ye, hear ye! A great concert is coming up, and I encourage you all to attend.

I'll be singing with Schola Cantorum this weekend. This particular concert will be 10 voices, 2 on a part, and the highlight of the program will be Britten's Hymn to St. Cecilia. Also, I will be singing soprano on about half the program, something that has not happened possibly ever, so I encourage you all to witness this once-in-a-lifetime event!

The details:

The concert I encourage you to attend if you are in the Boston area is this Friday night, April 13, at 8:00 pm. It will be at St. Peter's Church in Weston, MA, which may sound far away, but which is in actuality just off Rt. 128. Directions can be found here.

There are two other concerts, in Rhode Island. On Saturday, April 14th, we'll be at Saint Joseph's Church in Providence (Hope and Arnold Streets, East Side) at 8 pm, and on Sunday, we'll be somewhere even further south in RI, but I don't know where because they printed up the posters before we got that gig. So if you want to go to that one, comment and let me know and I'll get you the information!

Britten's Hymn to St. Cecilia, 2 voices to a part! It'll be fabulous. You know you want to come!

Teacher Vignette

Dramatis personae:
Me (assistant choral teacher)
JMC (orchestra teacher, with whom I share office space)

Me stomps into our office after chorus class

Me: I hate spring! I never knew it until this year, but I hate it. I wish it would go away.
JMC: The kiddies are losing focus, are they?

My uncle prophetically asked a few days ago if spring fever had hit. Well, today was pretty bad! Getting my kids to stop talking was a Herculean, nay, Sisyphean task. Getting them to focus on the music and actually sing was equally impossible. Why do they make so much noise when they talk and so little when they sing? Argh!


(Side note: I often refer to my students as "my kids." When people don't know me very well, this often gets me weird looks, and I have to clarify that they're not my offspring, they're my students. Don't other teachers refer to their students as "my kids"?)

The Construction of Boston

Hear ye, hear ye! The Boston Cecilia's final concert of the season is this Sunday at New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall. It features a one-act opera by local composer Scott Wheeler called The Construction of Boston, and also has several pieces by Virgil Thomson. The soloists are fantastic, and the chorus is sounding great.

I've heard parts of the rehearsals, and looked over the score, and the words that come to mind about this piece are "charming, amusing, witty, appealing." I find the music remarkably accessible and endearing. The text is a Dada play by Kenneth Koch, and he wrote it in 3 days as a performance piece for the artists Robert Rauschenberg, Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint-Phalle (click here for pictures of Niki's Tarot Garden.) It's a lot of fun (you get to hear people sing the characters of Back Bay and Beacon Hill, among others.) You can find program notes online here.

As Operations Manager, I have a limited number of comp tickets to this concert. Let me know (by commenting - I am automatically e-mailed comments) if you would like to come.

Details:

Location: Jordan Hall, New England Conservatory (right near Symphony Hall in downtown Boston)
Date: This Sunday, April 1
Time: 3 pm (pre-concert lecture by the composer at 2 pm)

Come one, come all!

Cabaret

I may or may not have previously mentioned that I am the vocal director for the Winchester High School production of Cabaret. Well, it went up last night. And hot damn. It was good!

It has been a long week. On Monday, I was in utter despair that this thing would pull together. We hadn't had a tech rehearsal yet - we didn't have a tech week at all, all tech issues were handled during the run-throughs on Tuesday and Wednesday - people didn't get their body mics until the dress rehearsal - people didn't have all of their costumes even at the dress rehearsal - the set wasn't competely constructed at the dress rehearsal - the band wasn't holding together all the time - the dancers couldn't hear the music - transitions were sloppy - I couldn't hear the chorus - we couldn't get through anything without stopping - I could go on. Even on Wednesday, the dress rehearsal, I was banging my head into the closest solid object I could find.

And voila, opening night last night went great. It was great! My mother came to the show tonight and couldn't say enough good things. Everyone loved it, and with good reason.

I think most of the credit for this has to go to the leads. Every single one is amazing - there are no weak links whatsoever, and everyone is perfect for their role. I keep trying to think of ways to make sure they know how great they are, and I keep being sure that I must be failing, and that they won't believe me. The entire cast has my gratitude. (Oh, and you won't believe how these kids can dance. There's a dance school in town they all go to, and it really shows. There is one dance in the first act that has me laughing hysterically every time I see it.)

SO, although this posting is late, if you're not busy tomorrow night, come to Winchester High School at 7:30 pm and see a quite excellent production of Cabaret.

Having quite literally worried myself sick this week, apparently for no good reason, I will now go to bed with some hot tea.

Classical Producer fakes CD's

From BBC.com. "The husband of a British pianist has admitted passing off other classical works as those of his late wife, the label of one "sampled" artist has said."

Brought to my attention by friend AS.

Concert this Sunday

I am in a concert this Sunday which I think is going to be quite interesting, and I encourage you to come if you are free. I'm ringing with the Choir of All Saints in Brookline. Details:

We'll be singing Mozart's Mass in F Major and Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb. Also being performed (and these are both very exciting) will be Barber's Dover Beach, performed by Robert Honeysucker (who has the most delightful bass voice in Boston) and Poulenc's Organ Concerto in g minor, performed by Barbara Bruns. The conductor, Don Teeters (who is also the director of the Boston Cecilia, and thus the reason I'm in the concert) keeps telling me the Poulenc is utterly amazing, and not to be missed.

It will be at 3 pm on Sunday, March 4, at All Saints Parish in Brookline...and this concert, folks, is...

FREE!

Yes, a FREE concert! Of high quality! When else can you hear Robert Honeysucker for free? So come on by!

AMC report

I believe in a previous post I mentioned going up to Pinkham Notch in NH to conduct a Mountains and Music weekend. That was the weekend before this past one, and it was a great time.

The big part of the weekend was teaching the singers who signed up Haydn's Paukenmesse. We had three rehearsals, and although we didn't do all of the Credo, just the final fugal bit, the entire thing came together really well. The last time I went up (in Fall 2004) the choir was OK, but this time the choir was great - all the voice parts were strong, and everyone could read, and I even had enough tenors! My friend AG came up and sang part of the soprano solo - I love conducting her, so that was a real treat. And JL, organist and keyboardist supreme, came up to accompany, which was also a treat, since I don't get provided with an accompanist all that often. We performed the mass with the orchestra on Saturday night, and it went really well. It's always good to have your family playing the loudest instruments (Mom on tympani, Dad on trumpet) because you know they'll be watching, and it makes you feel a bit more secure! Then the orchestra conductor, Peter Szep, conducted Beethoven's 8th and the Mendelssohn Midsummer Night's Dream suite, and, as AG said, held them together by sheer force of will, which was extraordinarily instructive to watch (as well as quite amusing!)

Sunday night was a talent show, where we performed PDQ Bach's My Bonnie Lass, She Smelleth in a manner befitting a composer whose music has been rescued from the trash bins behind universities, and my dad and I performed Monty Python's Penultimate Supper sketch (over my mother's objections, but to great acclaim.) Earlier that day I also got to do a bunch of duet singing with AG, which was most fun.

But that was half the weekend - the other half, and the other reason everyone went up to NH, was to tramp around in the snow. As someone who tends not to get along well with winter, it was good to go outside in truly wintery circumstances and enjoy myself. Sunday I went snow-shoeing for the first time, and it was great. Monday morning I was told I didn't need snowshoes, and as a result the half-hour hike was spent with me up to my knees, and sometimes my hips, in snow. Luckily I had a tall guy in front of me to break down the snow, and I could walk in his footsteps - I felt like King Wenceslas's page. But the wind was blowing so hard that day that even if I was just three yards behind him, his footsteps would begin to be filled in. JL danced around me in snowshoes and mocked my staggering progress.

We stopped at the Pearl Izumi outlet on the way back through North Conway, but unfortunately even at the outlet I couldn't afford anything. However, the desk clerk was cute, and quite helpful.

And really, one can't discuss Pinkham Notch without mentioning the food, which (setting aside the corned beef) was great. I had hot chocolate with every single meal. The second dinner we ate I ate so much of the soup (corn chowder) that I couldn't eat the main entree. This made me very sad, but the corn chowder was worth it.

I enjoyed the first time I went up for this Mountains and Music weekend, but I enjoyed this time even more. It was a great experience, and although they have a policy of trying to always be looking for new conductors, I'm hoping they'll ask me back again someday!

Pachelbel Rant

Two links about Pachelbel!

The first one is from my friend Christianne: The Pachelbel Rant! (as featured, YouTube claims, on Dr. Demento.)

And, if you can't get enough, The Taco Bell Canon in D, from my parents. I believe it was originally done by a group at U Mich, but I don't know if that's who is in the video.

Heavy concert weekend!

Hear ye, hear ye! Cappella Clausura has a couple of concerts coming up this weekend, and if you are free, I heartily invite you to come. The title of the concert is: Planctus Mariae: A Medieval Opera, and it's a plainsong drama about Mary at the cross, interspersed with Laudae (congregational praise songs) sung by the choir. More information is in this article in the Newton Tab. And yes, I have a few solos, although I'm not one of the main players in the drama. If you like chant, or monophony, or early music, I think you will really enjoy this concert.

Details:

SATURDAY February 10th @ 8:00 PM
at Episcopal Parish of the Messiah in Newton

SUNDAY February 11th @ 7: 00 PM
at Centre for the Arts in Natick, and

SUNDAY March 18th @ 3: 00 PM
at Music at St. Mary's, Boston College

Also on Feb. 10 are:

The Winchester First Annual MadrigalFest, held in Winchester's Town Hall at 7:30 pm.

Schola Cantorum singing a program of White Lamentations, Byrd, and Fayrfax at St Joseph's Church in Providence RI. (401-274-5073 $20/15/8) I was asked to sing in this concert, and was crushed that I had to say no.

And the Westminster Graduate Conducting Recital of LLJ. Good luck, Linda!

RIP Menotti and Pinkham

Gian Carlo Menotti passed away last week. I recommend listening to the NPR memorial, which covers all his best-known achievements - writing the operas Amahl and the Night Visitors, The Consul, and The Medium, and his founding of the Spoleto Festivals in both Italy and the US.

With musicians, isn't it always better to listen to memorials, rather than read them?

While I'm at it, RIP to Daniel Pinkham, Boston composer, who sadly died in December. Every organist I know went to the funeral, and apparently it was a rather humorous affair, as people shared their often amusing memories. Here is one from my friend J. Lawton:

"One story told during the memorial service went like this: Dan sent for approval an opera libretto he was working on to a certain professor or official; the opera was to deal with Jesus' descent to Hell following the crucifixion. The official responded affirmatively, but asked whether something about "the soul of man" could be rephrased to be more inclusive. Dan responded, "Oh, say that I'm a traditionalist and won't change it." A couple of days later, though, he called the official back, saying he had decided on a couple of changes. He indicated that, first, the word "man" was to be changed to "all"; and second, that the part of Satan, slated for bass-baritone, was to be given to a soprano instead."

Here's an NPR remembrance of Daniel Pinkham, but it's in the middle of the clip, at 6:00 minutes. Sadly, this one doesn't include any musical clips, but it's very interesting nonetheless.

Two reviews

It has been a busy concert weekend! On Friday night, I went to see Värttinä with my parents. They are a Finnish vocal trio/folk group/rock group, and they were fabulous - I highly recommend their live show. They were expressive and energetic and really engaging - the singers moved and danced around the stage, and their faces were incredibly alive. All the musicians were really high caliber, and their sound is just so evocative. It defies my description - go watch a video on their website to get an idea.

Last night I went to BMOP's "Boston ConNECtion" concert. This featured pieces for orchestra or chamber orchestra with various soloists by six different local composers. Some pieces I found boring, but the overall compositional quality was very high, with Michael Gandolfi's Fantasia for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra being the highlight, in my opinion. And the musicians were all fabulous. I don't know that I've ever been to a BMOP concert before, and I was very impressed with their presentation - they projected an image that was professional and sharp, but also young and hip, and it was reflected in their audience, which was both younger than usual at classical concerts and also fairly big.

Next up will hopefully be Convivium next Saturday, because I have a friend singing. Stay tuned!

AMC Mountains and Music

[This post has been edited from the original post, because it turns out that we do have enough altos, but not enough on any other voice part.]

This is an attempt to recruit singers for a conducting gig I have coming up!

Three times a year, the Appalachian Mountain Club sponsors a "Mountains and Music" weekend. This coming February it's up in Pinkham Notch in NH. You pay a registration fee that covers your board, all meals except lunch, and activities (such as hiking or snow-shoeing.) People show up for the weekend, make some music, do some outdoor activities, sit by the fire and read...whatever they feel like. I myself plan on doing some downhill skiing. I'll be directing the chorus, and right now we need more singers on all voice parts (although we are actually all set for altos, and we are rather desperate for men.) And we all put on a little concert at the end of the weekend with the orchestra (we'll be doing Haydn's Missa in Tempore Belli) so we need to have a little balance!

Information is here. There is no audition, or anything, and a wide range of musical experience, so it's a very low-stress experience. If you sing, and want to sing with me, think about signing up!

Sick, Round 2

Well, it was foolish to think I could get through my first year of teaching by only getting sick once, right? Of course, this time would hit over a holiday weekend.

I had to cancel several meetings with friends, my voice lesson, call in sick to school today, and worst of all, I'm missing the first rehearsal for Cappella Clausura's next concert. I am becoming a nightmare member for the poor conductor - the first concert, I got sick at the beginning of the rehearsal period too, had laryngitis during the whole process, and didn't sing until the dress rehearsal. Luckily this flu has not hit my throat as hard, but I still had to miss the first rehearsal today. I feel extremely guilty about this, especially since the concert is very complex and I really needed the read-through.

So, I thought, at least there's one productive thing I can do while lying in bed, I can listen to the tape of my last voice lesson and take notes. I record all my voice lessons and listen to them later so I remember what happened and can take notes on what I'm learning at a more leisurely pace. I popped the tape in five minutes ago, and discovered that somehow my last voice lesson was recorded at super-high speed, meaning the only thing I can make out is incoherent manic chipmunk voices. And my tape-player doesn't have a speed-of-playback control.

Apparently I am doomed to lie in bed and watch DVD's of Deep Space Nine. There are worse fates.

Octets rehearsal

This evening I sat in on the rehearsal for the Winchester Octets. The name is misleading - there are about 20 of them. They are the WHS a cappella group (unlike Lexington High School, which now has something like 9 a cappella groups, WHS has only one) and definitely the cool kids of the music department. They run their own rehearsals, but since they rehearse in the high school, a faculty member has to be present, and I was asked to be there tonight.

So I sat in the office and did work and listened to them rehearse "Circle of Life" from the Lion King in the next room, but at the end they asked me to listen to them sing through the song and make some comments, which I did. Afterwards, one of the members came up to me and thanked me for my input, said that it was really helpful to hear constructive criticism from someone who knew what they were doing and whose opinion he respected, and said that he hoped that I and perhaps the other choral teacher would consider giving some more helpful comments in the future.

Well. I spend all my days tearing my hair out trying to get these kids to listen to me. Let me tell you, nothing makes you feel as cool as having a high school kid tell you he respects your opinion.

Musical auditions

Today were the auditions for the high school musical, which is Cabaret. I am music director. The uber-director seems competent and experienced and smart and funny (thank goodness!) and nice, and I'm looking forward to working with him.

How strange to be on the other side of these auditions! I feel like I was just there, although I suppose none of my kids would believe that. And I remember how important this is, and how heart-broken some people will be. It's also unfortunate that the leads for Cabaret are all either high tenors or low altos. There are no parts for basses. Aside from parts of songs, there are no parts for sopranos. This sadly means that a great many qualified people don't even have the beginnings of a chance for a lead. I think every single male part has a high G, and more than one has a high A. I hate the thought of disappointing people, especially people who really don't deserve to be disappointed. But there are more good singers and dancers and actors than parts to go around. In some cases, there's hardly anything to choose between one person and another - you know they'd both do great. I'm dealing by forgetting, most of the time, how centrally important this is to some students.

The auditions also highlighted one thing I have a lot of trouble remembering about being a high school student - in fact, it's almost impossible. I don't remember the terror. I am so far from being nervous when I sing in a choir, or sing in front of people, or even sing in an audition. I get a little nervous for solo singing performances, but not much. I get more anxious for conducting, but again, nothing like the fears of a high-schooler trying out for the musical. And I can't even really remember it. I look at them, and have to tell myself how nervous they are, because otherwise I really wouldn't be able to see it, it's so distant. My empathy has to be conscious - I have to remind myself.

I suppose I should be grateful for the boons of experience! And I'm sure the kids will remind me often enough of how nervous they are before opening night.