From The Choir Loft: March Gladness Edition





Greetings, and a very happy Best Month Of The Year to you!

March is like three weeks of Christmas for basketball fans and add to that some sunshine and blue sky days, and that makes it by far the all-time, hands-down, best month of the year. Fact.

(But be aware: with such indulgence comes great responsibility. Two years ago I made the mistake of binge-watching White Collar on off-nights and wound up with several weeks of dreams about an art heist crew run by Charles Barkley!
a. He was surprisingly knowledgeable about forging ancient artifacts.
b. Tell me this shouldn't be a 30 minute sitcom. I'm just saying.)


From the Peanut Gallery:

"and it's 'a cappella!"
*followed by a chorus of resigned sighs and at least one "....must we...." from a section which will not be named*

"when I turn out the lights in class, people tend to fall asleep"
*followed by a thoroughly entertaining flurry of 'J'accuse!', adamant denials, and confusion from the student section*

And apparently there are at the same time too many and also not enough Camerons, so please keep that in mind in your choir recruitment efforts.



Music History and Literature:

Pablo Casals: Spanish cellist and composer, who at one time played a pivotal role in my 'Carmen Sandiago' computer game adventures as the answer to a trivia question, the question part I cannot remember. (Video of him playing that Bach cello concerto on youtube.)

Antiphonal Effect: dueling pianos choirs. Example: Lift Up Ye Heads (Handel). I like this version on Youtube, but it would be awesome if it were more of a face-off type of situation...

Celere: quick (and/or 'watch the conductor')

Cedere: slower (and/or 'watch the conductor')

Which sort-of makes sense, once I looked at it.. since 'Celere' is sort-of akin to 'Accelerando', and 'Cedere' is sort-of like 'Cede' #latinRootWordsForTheWin , maybe...



Interviews!!!

I am so pleased to post the first, of hopefully many, exclusive interviews. My strongly introverted nature prevents me from tracking down, cornering, and grilling more than two people per night, so find me early or use your honorary field reporter skills and send in some fun facts about your fellow choristers (pictures, video, and creativity encouraged!).

Angie H: Soprano

- In real life: has been at the Wake Law Library for 17 years

- Favorite vacation spot: Mount Rushmore

- Dream vacation spot: Italy

- Most notable non-choir-related musical achievement: Hammer Dulcimer. Which I feel like is far under-utilized in Sunday worship. Certainly there is an enterprising UNCSA student out there who could come up with some sort of Flute-Handbell-Hammer Dulcimer composition for the summer off-season!?!


Nancy P: Alto

- Has been keeping not just the choir, but the whole of First Pres "all present and correct" for 17 years

- Originally hails from Hendersonville, NC

- Rescues ferocious wildlife in her spare time. (Sadly, no mountain lions to report, but you definitely want to ask her about the vulture. I cannot do it justice.)

- Words to live by: "You do not ever want to scare a vulture. You WILL be sorry."



This week is not to be missed, as we are singing fan-favorites: Come, Thou Fount and Lord Jesus, You Shall be My Song (and maybe 'My Shepard Will Supply My Need'? I think?)

Also keep in mind that in one week the church is hosting First Serve on Saturday April 1, and a brunch with something called a Biscuit Bar on Sunday April 2, which is sure to be the next big food fad if it isn't already.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Truant Chorister: A New URL

Image
Hey, yal, and welcome back to your favorite choir rehearsal recap! I decided it was time to nudge the choir stuff into its own cyber-place, apart from the usual posts on Abridged (rants about the medical system, complaining about insurance, etc). This new URL for The Truant Chorister is:  thechoirloft.abridgedtheblog.com Sigh, yes. It is hosted on blogspot not wordpress. I have no defense except that I'm not a millennial and, well, it took literally* 10 seconds to set it up. (*in the truest sense of that word) For the newly initiated, these posts are the sole work of The Truant Chorister herself, so as to maintain plausible deniability for the estimable Dodds and Orgain. Additions, substitutions, and guest posts are welcome! This week: We welcomed even more new faces, Huzzah! Including some section leaders who are already proving their invaluable worth as melodic anchors, giving us much more confidence in the part-singing and note-finding. One of the songs (
Read more

Christmas Concert Edition

Image
The Truant Chorister begs your forgiveness, as she has been terribly delinquent in chronicling this season's adventures. In the spirit of all things Choral and Christmas, please enjoy this... Unofficial, Unauthorized, Underground Preview of the #MusicSunday Christmas Concert 1. Without looking at the bulletin... count the number of instruments used in the performance. It should be well into double-digits, but the correct answer will depend on whether you decide to count 'bass guitar' as a 'guitar' and 'English horn' as an 'oboe'. 2. As an old pastor of mine used to announce in the middle of the most contemplative part of Christmas Eve Candlelight service: "now watch out folks, we're working with Live Fire, here!". Oil lamps and youth. "What could go wrong??" Just in case, there are a number of deputized fire marshals. Seriously. See if you can spot them. 3. Make sure to listen for the Altos' Very Difficul
Read more

Bell-a-palooza and Hymn Sing edition

Image
This week we were treated to newly alphabetized choir folders! ...completely disrupting my normal organization rule: last rehearsal's order, then performance order, then special-sectioned by whether I've ever thought we were singing it next week, but it turned out we weren't, and then the two lone songs I thought were still alphabetized but it turns out I mixed up whether song titles starting with "The" belonged with "T"s or with their second-word counterparts. I suppose I will have to muddle through as best I can for the next few weeks... In other news, it was a Monty Python-heavy night, with the Knights who say Ni and the Killer Joke skit , presented here conveniently captioned in an unspecified Slavic language. We are truly living in a glorious age for the internet.  And I'm not sure whether to root for or against a children's book collection of Michael's childhood adventures... "A is for Alligator... and Amputation..
Read more