Notes From The Choir Loft

Your loyal blog of record has updated the "Quarantine Life" scavenger hunt to include a few more choristers. If any folks were left out, it was a terrible mistake, so please let your humble blogger know and she shall beg your forgiveness and update as soon as possible. Enjoy seeing a few friendly and much-missed faces:

The Choir Collaboration during Quarantine: Some of our favorite books* *only one instance of an author appears even though several books from a series may have been nominated PDF Copy For Printing The Man Who Moved A Mountain, Richard Davids Small Great Things, Jodi Piccoult The Garden of Small Beginnings, Abbi Waxman At Home In Mitford, Jan Karon Bel Canto, Ann Patchett The Silver Trumpet, Owen Barfield The Horse and His Boy, C. S. Lewis Feels Like Falling, Kristy Woodson Harvey Change Me Into Zeus’s Daughter, Barbara Robinette Moss Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens The Giver of Stars, Jojo Moyes Little Women, Louisa May Alcott The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury Tales From Grace Chapel Inn, Various Authors Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen An Army At Dawn, Rick Atkinson The Wishing Chair Collection, Enid Blyton The Shoemaker’s Wife, Adriana Trigiani Janye Eyre, Charlotte Bronte Bryson City Tales, Walt Larimore, MD Still Life, Louise Penny A Threa

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

Greetings, dear choristers! I'm afraid my choir notebook is downstairs at the moment so the notes are flying without a net. This is the week all our hard work pays off and we conquer the Matterhorn-sized mountain of a piece called Nimrod (aka: Lux Aeterna). I do remember that in the midst of the epic Elgar rehearsal, there was something about a Kierkegaard-ian Leap of Faith. I have no idea which specific part of which piece this occurred in, however, as it applies to so many different places. I think I will save the, um.... unique phonetic alphabet of M. Dodds for another edition. The CD has been a wonderful help in the car, but if, like me, you sometimes find yourself without a CD player, here are some helpful links: Lux Aeterna Extra Practice Opportunities: **Incredible** version by British group Voces8 By Parts Note: I struggled with the sound quality when I tried playing it on my laptop, but it worked out well when I played it on my TV (standard TV spe

Greetings, dear choristers! Profound apologies for the slow start to the season. Your favorite underground, unauthorized, pirate choir blog is finally back! Class Notes: We started off the evening with a light-board masterclass. If you find yourself walking in darkness, see Rosemary or Angie, who now hold all knowledge of the Sanctuary lighting system. And started off singing with: Christmas! With Handel and Gjeilo, both of which will test your "skill of being stubborn". If you are looking for extra inspiration for the Norwegian pieces, I highly recommend SlowTV , now on Netflix (especially the boat ride)! The highlight sof the night were stories about the Handel-era musicians, and their various hijinx (In my head, the following facts are the basis of a Hamilton-type rap musical) - During a performance of 'Cleopatra', Handel was hitting the keyboard while this guy Matheson was on stage singing. But Matheson's part ends in act III (he was playi

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..

Well folks, unless you are Gonzaga, South Carolina, Oregon, or Carolina.... my sincere commiseration. Personally... I'm pulling for Anyone But Chapel Hill . Boom. That's right. I went there. (But I'd really like South Carolina to take it even though my bracket has Gonzaga...) But with that said, it's officially April, and I suppose time to move on.... back to Netflix, and waiting for football season. March Sadness, indeed. This Week In Music Lit: The march-like quality of Handel's 'Lift Up Your Heads' is because French Overtures included a march for royalty, who liked to make an entrance. And the previously mentioned antiphonal effect echos the origins of Psalm 24, which is implicitly about the King entering Jerusalem and the Biblical accounts that the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem involved two choirs, answering each other. (I may have made some of that up. Pls verify with someone who took better notes.) Handel was theatr