Last night's concert

Could choral music become cool? Well, the excitement that emanated from the Minnesota High School Honors Choir while working with Whitacre (and sounding marvelous) bodes well for its future. And, in the current economy, what could be more cost-effective than opening your mouth and singing?

LET'SgetrrreadytoRRRRRUMBLLLE!

Who? St. Olaf Choir v. VocalEssence!

Where? Cathedral of St. Paul!

When? Tonight!

Anything else we need to know? Yes: 12, count 'em, 12 HARPS!

Be There or BE SQUARE!

Okay, so you can't be there because it's just a rehearsal but you can be there on Friday at 8 p.m.  I seriously don't know how much rumbling there will be. Probably very little.

Jackie Greene

We just got home from seeing Jackie Greene.  It was great, as expected. Although my camera records a lot of video it does not record sound well. I hoped to have video to share but if I posted it, it would make your ears bleed. So here's "Ball and Chain" from a nice recording in a studio somewhere else some other time instead:

I did get some nice pictures, though. Here's one:

(Hey, I wasn't the only 40-something-year-old groupie in the audience.)

Night music

Like buttuh. Or perhaps caramel.

I went for coffee treat (or coffee candy as my friend FL likes to say) at the newly remodeled Starbucks and I found myself perusing -- once again -- the music offerings up for sale. Raising Sand looked interesting. However, since I very recently purchased a CD in a coffee shop I barely had enough money for the caffeine, so I abstained. But I did go straight to the computer when I got home and started looking around at interesting bluegrass music and decided I should tell you all about the VocalEssence CD for sale that paired the Ensemble with Monroe Crossing. If you like bluegrass and/or choral music you may or may not like a bluegrass mass. :-)

Have you had your dose of happiness yet today?

Off to a good start

Mendelssohn

I still think it's more fun to sing in it than sit and listen. The conductor was the smiley-est, most positive choral conductor I've ever had. He had to get out the hankie a few times to wipe a tear or two.

Bolcom concert in the news

...He realized in later years that this is how he thought about music: that it wasn't merely OK to mix classical and popular forms, as Haydn and Mahler had done, but that doing so might bring extra life to both genres. Moreover, he said, "It was the only way that I could integrate the various influences that have made me who I am, not looking at it as conflict but as a curious kind of harmony among themselves. It's the juxtaposition that creates the energy."

The Ordway did, in fact, rock

"Witness" review

The only things missing were the concert lighters. It's just not the same when all lighter-waving is confined to the designated smoking area.

I've never, ever had so much fun in a concert. It was exciting and kind of like a rave, maybe. Everybody has a soft spot for percussion and the percussion was awesome but I couldn't help but feel that the brass, strings, and woodwinds equally deserved acknowledgement for their totally awesome contributions. That music couldn't have been easy to play.

The audience jumped to its feet at the end of Dear Mrs. Parks so one of our singers passed out just to add to the drama. (She's okay.) I was on the fence about staying in the choir for another year because of the time commitment of the extra rehearsals and incidental (but ridiculously high) parking fees at The Ordway and Orchestra Hall, but I'm staying. It's way, way, way too much fun.

Mr. B and his music (cont.)

The morning run with Peggy today was highlighted by lots of new tunes thanks again to Mr. Bickerson and his library music obsession. (He made a special playlist of all the tunes with the word "lounge" in the album title, for example.) So there I was, coming down the homestretch with Peggy when this beauty came to the top of the queue:

"I'm Not Lisa," by Jessie Colter

FYI MPR

In my mailbox:

Tune in to Classical Minnesota Public Radio (99.5 FM in the Twin Cities) Thursday, November 2, during the 3 pm hour.

Live music by VocalEssence and Cantus will be heard during the weekly regional music spotlight on Classical Minnesota Public Radio this Thursday between 3 and 4 pm. Three selections from the October 1 “American Voices” concert, recorded at Orchestra Hall, will be featured:

VocalEssence Ensemble Singers: The Day is Done, Stephen Paulus
Cantus: They Shall Hunger No More, Dominick Argento
VocalEssence Chorus and Ensemble Singers: Beneath These Alien Stars, Libby Larsen

Texts:

The Day is Done
Stephen Paulus (2006)

The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me
That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of they choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall be banished like restless feelings
That silently steal away.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow



They Shall Hunger No More
Dominick Argento (1966)
from The Revelation of Saint John the Divine

They shall hunger no more,
neither thirst any more;
neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.

For the Lamb shall feed them,
the Lamb shall lead them unto living fountains of water:
and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes,
and shall lead them unto living fountains of water.

Alleluia, Amen.
—Revelation 7:16-17



Beneath these Alien Stars
Libby Larsen (1988)

Beneath these alien stars
In darkness I have stood alone,
More than mountains
Come between me and my home.

The desert wind has waved my hair:
Desert sands have etched my face,
And the courage of the mountains
Has bound me to this place.

And something of its peace I’ve won.
I have stood with only God,
Between me and the sun.
—Vesta Pierce Crawford, from Pioneer Woman