Monday link

If only conducting was really like this...

Audition notice

This announcement is copied wholesale out of an e-mail that arrived in my inbox!

The Spectrum Singers announce auditions on Monday, June 15.

Auditioning experienced choral singers in all voice parts. Spectrum is a select group of singers that performs music from the pre-Renaissance through to the present, in a broad range of musical styles. Music Director John W. Ehrlich asks that auditionees prepare a German or French lied or aria.

For more information about Spectrum or to schedule an audition, go to www.spectrumsingers.org, send an e-mail to info@spectrumsingers.org, or leave a message on the chorus telephone 617-492-8902.

Friday cat post!

Oomi wonders why, exactly, my brother is always clicking that strange contraption at him her.

Weekend Concert Calendar, 6/11/09

The two main events of the weekend are the wrapping up of the Boston Early Music Festival; and Gay Pride week! Go hear some world-class 80's, and then check out the Boston Gay Men's Chorus singing 80's music. You will have a well-rounded weekend. Don't forget, the BEMF Concert Calendar is here, and the Fringe Festival calendar is here.

Friday:

10 am: University of North Texas Baroque Orchestra & Collegium Singers; “Deus Judicium Tuum”: Sacred Music of Kuhnau and Telemann; Church of the Covenant, Boston. BEMF Fringe concert.

7:45 pm: The Arlington-Belmont Chorale; Annual POPS! Concert: Music of the 1930's; Arlington Town Hall

8 pm: Boston Gay Men's Chorus; "Boys Just Wanna Have Fun: Totally 80's!"; John Hancock Hall, Back Bay Events Center.

8 pm: Stile Antico; "Song of Songs: Sensuous Polyphony from the Courts of Renaissance Europe"; Emmanuel Church in Boston. BEMF Festival Concert.

Saturday:

12:30 pm: Convivium Musicum; "Going for Baroque"; Church of St. John the Evangelist. BEMF Fringe concert.

12:30 pm: Polyhymnia; "Exequias: Music for the Royal Funerals of Renaissance Spain"; Lindsey Chapel of Emmanuel Church. BEMF Fringe concert.

12:45 pm: Oriana Consort; "Music from the Late and Early Baroque"; First Lutheran Church of Boston. BEMF Fringe concert.

4:30 pm: Music Divine; “Missa Salve diva parens” by Jacob Obrecht; First Lutheran Church of Boston. BEMF Fringe concert.

5:00 pm: La Donna Musicale; "La Virtuosa di Venezia: Anna Bon"; Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology in Boston. BEMF Fringe concert.

7:30 pm: Libana; Summer Solstice Celebration; First Parish in Bedford

11 pm (yes, you read that right): Tragicomedia and Friends; "Here I am, ready for kisses: The Many Sides of Love in Monteverdi’s Madrigals"; NEC's Jordan Hall. BEMF Festival Concert.

Sunday:

1 pm: Coolidge Corner Community Chorus; "Rose Garden Serenade"; Minot Rose Garden in Brookline

7 pm: Boston Gay Men's Chorus; "Boys Just Wanna Have Fun: Totally 80's!"; John Hancock Hall, Back Bay Events Center.

Did I forget anything? Leave it in the comments!

Monday link (slippin' it in under the wire!)

Check out this video of the song Stand By Me, played by 35 musicians from all around the globe.

It is amazing - I am blown away by the manner in which people who are not even on the same continent while they are playing, and who are not playing at the same time, can still create such a deft musical give-and-take. Also, I love the all the voices, but the first singer's voice especially...I would love to go out to that sidewalk and just sit and listen for a few hours.

Friday cat post!

Today we have some special guest stars. My parents are currently in China, and my father sent me these two photos of some Chinese cats.




My father titled the second "Cat on a Hutong roof." (Yes, I grew up with puns like that my entire childhood.)

Weekend Concert Calendar, 6/4/09

Here it is, your weekend concert calendar! This week it is All BEMF, All the Time.

6/6 through 6/14 is the Boston Early Music Festival and Exhibition. Check out their site for details. There are many, many concerts, several of them featuring choral music (of course!) The festival schedule is here; the fringe concert schedule is here. I have also tried to note all choral concerts below - scold me in the comments if I missed something!

Friday:

8:00 pm: Exsultemus; The Elvas Songbook: Portuguese and Spanish songs of the Renaissance; First Lutheran Church of Boston. BEMF Fringe concert.

Saturday:

8:00 pm: Newton Community Chorus; Puccini’s Gloria and Stabat Mater; Our Lady Help of Christians' Church in Newton.

Sunday:

1:00 pm: ¡Sacabuche!; The Venetian Influence; Emmanuel Church. BEMF Fringe concert.

2:00 pm: Vox Lucens, Love, Sweet and Deadly: Monteverdi’s Book I, Goethe-Institut Boston. BEMF Fringe concert.

Tuesday:

12:00 pm: Cappella Clausura; "From Bingen to Salzinnes...to Persia"; Gordon Chapel, Old South Church. BEMF Fringe concert.

Wednesday:

3:0 pm: Ensemble Suave; "Love Kills Sweetly: 17th- and 18th-Century Italian Vocal Works"; Gordon Chapel, Old South Church. BEMF Fringe concert.

4:00 pm: Zefiro; "Music of Renaissance England and Spain"; Clarendon Room in the Radisson
Hotel, Boston. Part of the SoHIP concerts at the BEMF Exhibition. I'm singing in this one!

Thursday:

11:00 am: The C. W. Post Madrigal Singers, The Merriweather Consort, and the C. W. Post Guitar Ensemble; Divine Frenzy: La musica degli angeli terreni; Church of the Covenant, Boston. BEMF Fringe concert.

Did I miss anything? (Possible, as the Boston Globe Calendar is currently down.) Leave it in the comments!

Wednesday link

Well, I forgot to do a Monday link, so have a Wednesday link!

New Study by Chorus America Finds Positive Benefits of Choruses and Choral Singing for Children, Adults, and Communities

The study was produced by Chorus America. It was funded with support from The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, an anonymous donor, and The National Endowment for the Arts.

Weekend Concert Calendar, 5/28/09

It's a less busy weekend than I had anticipated - I think most choruses have already disbanded for the summer. That Handel & Haydn at the Hatchshell on Sunday looks like fun, I must say!

Friday:

• 8:00 pm: Lexington Pops Chorus; "Songs and Readings from the American Civil War"; Lexington Hancock Church

Saturday:

• 7:00 pm: The Braintree Choral Society and the Choral Art Society; Mendelssohn’s St. Paul oratorio; Thayer Academy Center for the Arts
• 7:30 pm: Exsultemus; "The Elvas Songbook: Music of 16th Century Portugal"; St. Anthony's Church in Lowell
  
• 8:00 pm: Lexington Pops Chorus; "Songs and Readings from the American Civil War"; Lexington Hancock Church
• 8:00 pm: Musica Sacra; "In Music Is Such Art: Choral Music with Texts from Shakespeare"; First Church Congregational in Cambridge
• 8:00 pm: The Paul Madore Chorale; "The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace by Karl Jenkins"; Salem High School
  

Sunday:

• 3:00 pm: Handel and Haydn Society; Haydn's Creation; Boston Hatch Shell
• 3:00 pm: Chorus Pro Musica; Puccini's Turandot; NEC's Jordan Hall
  

Monday link - sick

Blergh. I have come down with a cold - it started on Saturday, so it pretty effectively squashed the whole weekend for me. So, in honor of my current state, I'll link you to The Chorister's suggestions for what to do when you're sick. I've only heard of echinacea - anyone else have experience with olive leaf extract or bee propolis? (Hat tip to the Choralnet blog, btw, for pointing me at this entry.)

Or I could always take my own advice.

Friday cat post!

Well, you didn't get a Monday link or a Weekend Concert Calendar this week, but at least I'm doing the Friday cat post!



Oomi jumped into a closet and burrowed into a shelf of clothes. This is why you should only buy clothes the color of your cat.

Friday cat post!

It was pointed out to me that last Friday I completely and utterly neglected to do a cat post. And I didn't even remember my forgetfulness until it was pointed out to me. Sorry about that!

Today's picture can very aptly be named "Portrait of Basement Cat."

Weekend Concert Calendar, 5/14/09

I am going to play around with the format of the concert calendar, I think. The one I did a couple of weeks ago ended up being a bit easier to read, even if it had less information, so I'm going to see how a variation on that works. Feedback about how you would like me to format the weekend concert calendar is welcome!

This weekend is very big for me. Anthology is having three concerts (actually, four - we had one yesterday evening as well) and these will be our last concerts until the fall. Vicky, one of our sopranos, is due to have a baby in about a week and a half (and we are crossing our fingers that the munchkin doesn't come too soon!) They are going to be very fun - we decided to do a concert of all fun and funny songs. So there will be Monty Python, dirty Renaissance rounds, numerous songs about food, PDQ Bach, Sesame Street, Broadway (complete with bowler hats), and of course a bit of Disney. ("Poor Unfortunate Souls" from The Little Mermaid, to be precise.) Please come! There is even a world premiere composed by one of us on the text "Don't Bump the Glump" by Shel Silverstein.

Here are the details:
Friday, May 15, 8pm - Shirley Meetinghouse, 41 Brown St, Shirley, MA
Saturday, May 16, 8pm - Center for Arts at the Armory Cafe, 191 Highland Ave, Somerville, MA
Sunday, May 17, 4pm - Central Congregational Church, 85 Seaverns Ave, Jamaica Plain, MA

I hope to see many of you there!

Friday:

• 8:00 pm: Anthology! "Cain't Say No," Shirley Meetinghouse
  
• 8:00 pm: Halalisa Singers, "Roots and Wings - Celebrating the Best of Halalisa," Unitarian Universalist Society of Wellesley Hills
• 8:00 pm: Arlington-Belmont Chamber Chorus, "Music for a Spring Evening," including J.S. Bach's Cantata No. 68, "Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt" and "Singing In Tongues" by Christopher Haynes, First Parish Unitarian-Universalist Church in Arlington

Saturday:

• 8:00 pm: Anthology! "Cain't Say No," Center for Arts at the Armory Cafe in Somerville
  
• 5:00 pm: Somerville Community Chorus, Spring Concert featuring songs of Peace and Love, including G.F. Handel's "The Anthem on the Peace," College Avenue United Methodist Church
• 7:30 pm: New England Classical Singers, "My Spirit Sang All day," an eclectic mix of music by American and British composers, First Calvary Baptist Church
• 8:00 pm: Back Bay Chorale, Brahms Requiem; Wachner's "Come My Dark Eyed One" (world premiere), Sanders Theater at Harvard
• 8:00 pm: Newburyport Choral Society and Orchestra, Bach's Mass in B Minor, Belleville Congregational Church
• 8:00 pm: Halalisa Singers, "Roots and Wings - Celebrating the Best of Halalisa," First Parish in Lexington
• 8:00 pm: Spectrum Singers, Mozart's Vesperae Solennes de Confessore and Coronation Mass, First Church Congregational in Cambridge
• 8:00 pm: Assabet Valley Master Singers, works by Corigliano and Thompson, Chapel of the Cross in Westborough
• 8:00 pm: Newton Choral Society, Poulenc's Mass in G and Duruflé's Requiem, The Second Church in Newton

Sunday:

• 4:00 pm: Anthology! "Cain't Say No," Central Congregational Church in Jamaica Plain
  
• 2:00 pm: In Choro Novo, "A Spring Rhapsody," Amazing Things Arts Center in Framingham
• 2:30 pm: Newburyport Choral Society and Orchestra, Bach's Mass in B Minor, Belleville Congregational Church
• 3:00 pm: Masterworks Chorale, Haydn’s Stabat Mater, Sanders Theater at Harvard
• 3:00 pm: Boston Secession, "Dolci Momenti," Gordon Chapel, Old South Church
• 3:00 pm: Cambridge Community Chorus, Brahms Schicksalslied and Cherubini's Requiem in C minor, Kresge Auditorium at MIT
• 4:00 pm: All Saints’ Choir of Men and Boy, Choral Evensong and Benediction, Parish of All Saints in Dorchester
• 4:00 pm: DeVaronistas, Music from Three Continents, Pleasant Street Congregational Church in Arlington
  
• 4:00 pm: Cantata Singers and students from the Boston Arts Academy, "I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Songs of Terezin Concentration Camp," the Vilna Shul in Boston
  
• 7:30 pm: Quincy Choral Society, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, Sacred Heart Church in North Quincy
• 7:30 pm: The Zamir Chorale of Boston, Koleinu, Kol Rinah and Shir Tsiyon, Jewish Choral Festival, The Fenway Center in Boston
• 7:30 pm: Concord Chorus, Fauré's Requiem, St. Matthew's United Methodist Church in Acton

Did I forget anything? Leave it in the comments!

Monday link

From my friend Margaret Ronald (who has a new novel out, btw! Although that has nothing to do with this amusing picture below. But I have a few extras - if you are the first person to comment and ask, it's possible I might send you one for free.)

I assume credit for this flowchart goes to Robert Bolyard, whose e-mail address is in the picture. (Click on the image to make it open bigger in a new window.) Warning for salty language, if you care about that sort of thing.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day!

Weekend Concert Calendar...whoops!

I just realized that it is Friday and I did not post a concert calendar yesterday! Profound apologies - I am completely snowed under by various performances, auditions, rehearsals, and sundry other activities, and so I am afraid that this week you will have to do your own research.

Special apologies to all the groups who are giving wonderful performances this weekend and whom I am not advertising here.

And finally, come to Iolanthe! Tonight and tomorrow afternoon are the last two performances! And did I mention I'm conducting in a tiara?

Interview with Amelia LeClair, Transcript, Part 7

Here's the transcription of the seventh and last part of my interview with Amelia LeClair. You can find the previous parts here: one, two, three, four, five, six. Don't forget that Cappella Clausura, the group she directs, is performing this weekend! They will be at Grace Church in Salem this Sunday, May 10, at 7:30 pm. (They also performed this past weekend - hopefully some of you made it to those concerts!)

Interview with Amelia LeClair at the Cafe Algiers, Cambridge, MA, on 4/22/09, cont.

Q: All right, time for the questionnaire!
A: OK!
Q: All right, here we go. Just answer immediately, you don’t have to think about it hard. What is your favorite word?
A: Oh my God. [laughs] Maybe that’s it.
Q: Don’t think about it!
A: My favorite word? Oh, wow, I have a lot of favorite words, I love words.
Q: Pick one. Or you can list a bunch, that’s acceptable.
A: Chicken.
Q: What’s your least favorite word?
A: Chicken. Because it’s funny.
Q: What turns you on creatively, spiritually, or emotionally?
A: Music.
Q: What turns you off creatively, spiritually, or emotionally?
A: Bad music.
Q: [laughs] What sound or noise that is non-musical do you love?
A: Two hammers.
Q: Two hammers?
A: Take two household hammers and bang them together. They make a very cool sound.
Q: All right. What sound or noise that is non-musical do you dislike?
A: Oh, chalk on a blackboard.
Q: What’s your favorite curse word?
A: The f-word.
Q: OK! You’re allowed to say it, but I won’t force you. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? This is an interesting question for you, because you decided, and then you did it. A lot of people don’t necessarily make that informed a choice. But what would your second choice be?
A: If I had another life, and I could expend it in another way, I would be an oceanographer.
Q: And what profession would you absolutely never want to be?
A: Accounting.
Q: Name one of your favorite composers.
A: Brahms.
Q: Name one composer where you just don’t see what all the fuss is about.
A: Wagner.
Q: If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
A: “What shall we sing?”

Interview with Amelia LeClair, Transcript, Part 6

Here's the transcription of the sixth part of my interview with Amelia LeClair. You can find the previous parts here: one, two, three, four, five, and there is one more part to come. Don't forget that Cappella Clausura, the group she directs, is performing this weekend! They will be at Grace Church in Salem this Sunday, May 10, at 7:30 pm. (They also performed this past weekend - hopefully some of you made it to those concerts!)

Interview with Amelia LeClair at the Cafe Algiers, Cambridge, MA, on 4/22/09, cont.

Q: Who are some of your favorite conductors?
A: My favorite conductors?
Q: People that you really respect, people that you would look to emulate, people that you admire.
A: Hm. Well. Simon, of course. I have never sung for David Hoose, but I understand he’s pretty damn good, I’d like to see him, I’d like to sing for him, but I don’t think that I ever will. Let’s see. You know, I haven’t sung for a lot of people, so I don’t really know, because I don’t have a lot of experience. This is the anomaly of my life, I haven’t had the experience to be a conductor or even a singer –
Q: Except –
A: Except…right. I don’t know. I always think I should join a choir, but I don’t have time.
Q: Yes, it’s time-consuming.
A: Yes. Another night out.
Q: Are there big-name conductors that you may have seen conduct a symphony, or not even, but have read interviews with, or…?
A: Well, actually, when I grew up, yes. When I grew up I thought George Szell was god. I loved George Szell. I never went to see him conduct, because I didn’t have that kind of money, but I bought every recording he ever made. I also really liked – well, OK. I didn’t like Leonard Bernstein. I didn’t like Seiji Ozawa. I didn’t like Daniel Barenboim. I mean, all the orchestral conductors, the big guys, the big-wigs, I was very finicky about them. Because I grew up – well, I taught myself, really, by listening to a lot of orchestral music. And, you know, when you get to know a piece really, really well then you compare the way you’ve heard it to another rendition, and you kind of know, “OK, this is what I like, this is what I don’t like.” One of the things I always liked about George Szell was I loved all the Mozart symphonies. And one of the things that George Szell did which I thought was fabulous was that he always brought out the woodwinds.
Q: What?
A: He brought out the woodwinds. And you would never hear them in other renditions. You know, Eugene Ormandy, oh, lush strings, and that’s all you would hear was lush strings, well, where’s that clarinet? Where is that incredible clarinet? So I’m always listening for that – somebody who brings out that thing, that particular sound that I know is in there, and I’m listening but I’m not hearing it. I don’t know, that doesn’t answer your question very well.
Q: No, that does answer it! Very well. Before I get to the little ten-question ending questionnaire, what skills would you tell young conductors to go acquire?
A: People skills. [laughs]
Q: Good answer.
A: Yes. People skills. I think – you can go a long way to being successful with your choir if you can humor them into doing everything that you want them to do. And you need to humor them. I don’t think – what’s the word?
Q: Brow-beating?
A: Brow-beating, yes! [laughs] It doesn’t work. It just makes people feel bad. And being autocratic doesn’t work. It just makes people feel bad. And singers – I mean, I’m one of them. I’ve had my throat just kind of close up when somebody yells at me. It doesn’t work. I want my throat to be nice and open and relaxed, I don’t want it to feel like, “Ugh.” So, humor I think is really big. Looking at your singers as much as you can. Oh, I know. I sang for a guy, Norm MacKenzie. Wonderful guy. He’s the preparer for the Robert Shaw – has been for many years – for the Robert Shaw Chorale. I don’t know who he’s conducting now, but I sang for a week with him, sort of, you know, 24-7 we were together, this small group, 30 people and Norm MacKenzie. And when he conducted us, he looked at every one of us with this look in his eyes like, “You are the most important person in this piece.” And it made you feel like, “OK, I’ll give you anything.” When somebody looks at you like that, you just want to give them your entire life. You say, “OK, you got it! I’ll sing loud, I’ll sing high, I’ll sing low, I’ll sing whatever you want.” Because there’s just a look like, “Oh, aren’t you psyched about this, aren’t you excited, don’t you want to work for me?” That makes a lot of difference, I think. And I try to do that – I think that’s really important. Again, it’s people skills. It’s connecting with your singers on a level that you may not be comfortable doing outside of rehearsal, or you don’t have to do it outside of rehearsal. But inside rehearsal, you have to be the light. You have to be the eyes. You have to be everything.

[to be continued!]

Interview with Amelia LeClair, Transcript, Part 5

Here's the transcription of the fifth part of my interview with Amelia LeClair. You can find the first part here, the second part here, the third part is here, and the fourth part is here, and there is more to come. Don't forget that Cappella Clausura, the group she directs, is performing this weekend! They will be at Grace Church in Salem this Sunday, May 10, at 7:30 pm. (They also performed this past weekend - hopefully some of you made it to those concerts!)

Interview with Amelia LeClair at the Cafe Algiers, Cambridge, MA, on 4/22/09, cont.

Q: So talk to me about some of your ideas about conducting. What’s your philosophy of conducting? Imagine other conductors, and the ways you agree or disagree with them.
A: I guess the…huh.
Q: What do you think are the most important skills to have as a conductor? What do you feel it is that you’re doing?
A: I think the most important skill is to be able to communicate what it is that you are looking for. And I would say that communication comes both from your gesture and from your words. If you’re not a very good spokesperson for music, if you can’t say it, then you should be able to show it, and if you can’t show it, then you should be able to say it. And I think there are an awful lot of conductors who do one or the other. There are very few who do both. I don’t know if I can do both.
Q: Which one do you think you are?
A: I think I show better than I say. I think I do. Because I think that when I started conducting, I felt like --
Q: That’s interesting, because I would say you’re a good sayer, but…yes.
A: Really? Oh, well thank you.
Q: Yes. I mean, your gesture is also very easy to follow, but I would have said that you are very verbal.
A: Oh. Huh. Well, that’s good. I always feel that I’m tripping over myself. [laughs] But I think the reason I say that is because when I started conducting, I felt like I’d found my voice in my hands. It really felt like, this is so natural to me.
Q: Interesting.
A: Yes. Yes. Do you feel that way?
Q: [laughs] No.
A: No? Really?
Q: No. Oh, I’m very – I’m definitely a verbal – “This is what I want. Here we go.” You know.
A: But when you do that…
Q: No, it’s not – I have to work at it. I have to sit there and figure out in a bar, like, how am I going to do this fermata, you know, what this hand has to – and if the hands are going different directions, then I have to practice that.
A: I have to practice that too. Yes. I do too. But there’s something about – you know what taught me the most, and this is what I think everyone should do, this is something that I thought was really genius of Simon. This is the one teaching thing, teaching tool that he had that I thought was fabulous. Do recit. Do recit. Because if you can conduct recit., whether it’s accompanied or dry, if you can conduct that, you can conduct anything. Because there’s so many movements in one measure. Or maybe there isn’t a movement in one measure and you’ve got to stop yourself. And you can’t sing along with the singer, you just have to hold, because you’re just telling the instruments to hold, but then maybe you’ve got a violin who needs to move, you know, and then you’ve got other people holding, so you got to have the left-right agility. And then, you know, you’re going to have some movement for everybody. And then the singer’s going to move. And you’re going to stretch, and contract, and all that kind of stuff. And fermata. You know. It’s all – it teaches you so, so much. And when I first conducted a recit., it was actually one of our exams, I think, a year-end exame where we had to conduct a recit. And I worked and worked and worked and worked at it. And I felt like – at the same time as I knew that I was working really hard to get this right, I also felt like, “This is fabulous. This is great. This is where I belong, you know, doing this.” So it was a nice experience for me, really nice. And as a result of that, I felt like – and this is what I think you need to feel if you really want to bring voices out, or instruments, I guess it works – I don’t know. One of the things I loved about conducting was feeling like the voices were coming out of my hands. You know. All that sound is coming out of my hands. That’s very powerful. Because at the same time, you’re also communicating with your singers on a level that you never communicate with human beings. It’s a real spiritual thing, going on, you know. It’s fabulous. Very exciting.
Q: What in other conductors – you can name conductors who do things you like, or you can not name conductors, but talk about what it is that you don’t like.
A: There are a lot of conductors I’ve sung for whose beat you can’t find. That drives me crazy. [laughs] I mean, I don’t think I have that as an issue, nobody’s told me that’s my issue, I hope it’s not. But if I can’t find the beat, then I just –
Q: Mai-Lan totally would tell you. Hendrik? Come on. If you have issues, you know they’re going to tell you! [ed. note: Mai-Lan Broekman and Hendrik Broekman frequently play viola da gamba and continuo, respectively, with Cappella Clausura and other early music groups in the greater Boston area.]
A: I know, that’s true! [laughs] They have told me.
Q: So clearly that’s not one of your issues!
A: Yes, right. Yes. I think you have to be very clear with your beat, even if you just do a tactus. If you have no gesture whatsoever, if you just do a clear tactus, then – and you may have to strip back down to just a tactus if you’re all flowery. I’ve worked with a couple people who just did these circles. Circles and circles. What the hell does that mean? [laughs] What am I supposed to do with that? Then there are other conductors who never tell you what the meaning is of what you’re singing. You never get a translation, and they don’t talk about – you know, what’s the meaning of the text? And I think the meaning of the text is number one. Absolutely number one. Way before notes, way before rhythm, the thing that makes us different from orchestral conductors is that we have words. And we’ve got to express those words, and tell a story. It’s really important. And I confess, sometimes I get caught up with – depending on which group, when you have an amateur group and they just are not learning the notes, you get caught up in singing, you know – just working on getting the notes, working on getting the notes, and by the time you think about text, it’s almost too late. But that’s an amateur group, you know, and I guess you’ve got to [inaudible] with amateurs not knowing the notes until the concert. Ideally, ideally, I think it’s important to talk about text. I sang for ten years with a group whose conductor never once mentioned the text. And I wanted to raise my hand and say, “What is this word? What does this mean? We don’t have a translation. What am I saying? What am I singing about? Should I feel sad? Should I feel happy? I can’t follow your beat either.”
Q: He didn’t give you a translation?
A: No.
Q: How weird.
A: It is weird. He never talked about it. Never talked about it. And even with English, if you know what the words are, it’s helpful to have a conductor guide you and tell you what this means. Maybe do a little research about the poetry, or something. Something. Even if it’s just telling you the circumstance under which the composer set this particular poem. Something. For example, last night it occurred to me as we were trying to get a handle on this little Margaret of Austria piece that we’re going to be doing, which is this lament written by a royal person – it’s a very private piece of music – and as I was thinking about how to explain the atmosphere you want to put yourself in to sing this music, it occurred to me that – I don’t know if you’ve ever seen these little – in French castles – have you ever been to a French castle? An old French castle?
Q: Probably, but not in memory.
A: In a lot of them, or the ones I’ve been in, they have these little kind of votive areas. It’s a little part of the room that has a hat. It’s like a little round ceiling with a fringe on it or something, and something drawn in that ceiling. It’s like a tiny little chapel ceiling. A dome. And there might be a candle that you’re supposed to put under that. That’s where you do your praying, or that’s where you do whatever, something very private. And it occurred to me that this would be where she might have been praying, at this particular spot, you know, lamenting, weeping, whatever she’s doing, under this little dome. This little dome in her private royal room. So it makes it a very intimate piece. It makes it a very private piece. So that kind of thing, if you can conjur for your singers where they want to put themselves, where they want to be when they sing this piece of music, I think that you help them sing it better. Because then they bring their spirit to it. They’re not just [inaudible] notes, they bring their spirit to it. There was a conductor I sang with – I sang the Brahms Requiem and I will always remember this story, because I thought it was so perfect. She was conducting – which part of it? Oh, I can’t remember which part of it. But it was – it was a section that, as she pointed out, she was saying – and there were two hundred of us – she was saying, “OK. All of you need to think of this piece as basically a piece where you’re holding yourself. And you’re, you know, kind of doing this [hugs self] and you’re rocking yourself.”
Q: Probably the middle movement.
A: I think so. I’m sure it’s in the middle somewhere. But you’re rocking yourself, you’re sort of cradling yourself, you’re trying to soothe yourself because it’s so sad. And you are so sad. And that whole image, I think, changed the way all of us sang it. All of a sudden it was about us, it was about us who are left behind, which is what’s so wonderful about the Brahms Requiem. I hope I can conduct that once before I die. That would be nice.
Q: Simon Carrington would tell you that you just do it.
A: He would. [laughs] “You just do, don’t you?” OK. But that was a neat experience, and it taught me a lot about what you should be as a director. You’re directing. You’re not just teaching notes, you’re directing people in a way to sing a piece of music, in a way to make it come alive, in a way to make it meaningful. Not just for you, but for your audience. Otherwise your audience is going to “ZZZ.” Snores-ville.

[to be continued!]

Monday link

Today's Monday link DOES have a link to music, but you may have to look closely to find it!

My mother is an inline skater, and two weeks ago she entered her first race, the Texas Road Rash. She came in second, and next year she will try for first and not spend her time, as she said, "chatting up all the policemen stationed on the course!" You can read a little interview with her at the Hill Country Inline Club, where she is the Skater of the Month.

Anyone catch the musical link?