who needs drugs when you have music?
Apr. 25th, 2005 10:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciroccojDUDE!!
That was like one of our best performances ever. Too bad it lasted about 11 minutes ;) But man, those were 11 amazing minutes. Any performance where you get two standing ovations for two songs, and get drowned out by applause at the end... it's a zen choir experience.
We were the "musical Item" on the program for the Community Forum "The Role of the African Diaspora in Canada in Improving the Quality of Life for African Communities: A Response to Africa’s Brain Drain" (check it out, we're there near the bottom, Harmonia choir) and we waited around for about two hours to sing two little songs: Jesu Mkululi and the Freedom Trilogy (first time performing the Trilogy in public). There were the usual last-minute jitters as we realized that we didn't have some parts down as well as we should, and last-minute sighs of relief as two ringers (friends of Kurt) joined our rather tiny tenor section.
Then we somehow got onto the stage, which was rather small and awkward, and we started Jesu Mkululi, a very soft and reverent-sounding African song, and when we finished, somebody in the audience said Wow!! and everybody clapped and a few people actually stood up, grinning and clapping enthusiastically, which we took to mean that despite our extreme whiteness we'd somehow done an African song the way it was meant to be done.
Then we started the Freedom Trilogy, people smiling and nodding at the Kyrie, and when we got to the African part, they actually started spontaneously clapping in time, and pushed us to deliver it with way more OOOMPH than we normally do. It's meant to be passionate rejoicing in the glory of God, after all. Not politely pointing out how nice it is that there is such a being as a Creator because, you know, sunsets and daisies and babies and all. Somewhere in there we sang "We are marching in the light of God" and by god, we sounded like we really were :)
Anyway after the African part Sandra belted out the gospel section like never before, then we started the mixing of styles and songs and by the end, as we mixed all three and then came back together for the Hallelujahs, the audience was actually already standing and clapping and cheering before we even ended the piece. Our big finale (full choir fortissimo, first sopranos holding a high A for five bars) was kinda drowned out by the applause.
COOL!!!
That was like one of our best performances ever. Too bad it lasted about 11 minutes ;) But man, those were 11 amazing minutes. Any performance where you get two standing ovations for two songs, and get drowned out by applause at the end... it's a zen choir experience.
We were the "musical Item" on the program for the Community Forum "The Role of the African Diaspora in Canada in Improving the Quality of Life for African Communities: A Response to Africa’s Brain Drain" (check it out, we're there near the bottom, Harmonia choir) and we waited around for about two hours to sing two little songs: Jesu Mkululi and the Freedom Trilogy (first time performing the Trilogy in public). There were the usual last-minute jitters as we realized that we didn't have some parts down as well as we should, and last-minute sighs of relief as two ringers (friends of Kurt) joined our rather tiny tenor section.
Then we somehow got onto the stage, which was rather small and awkward, and we started Jesu Mkululi, a very soft and reverent-sounding African song, and when we finished, somebody in the audience said Wow!! and everybody clapped and a few people actually stood up, grinning and clapping enthusiastically, which we took to mean that despite our extreme whiteness we'd somehow done an African song the way it was meant to be done.
Then we started the Freedom Trilogy, people smiling and nodding at the Kyrie, and when we got to the African part, they actually started spontaneously clapping in time, and pushed us to deliver it with way more OOOMPH than we normally do. It's meant to be passionate rejoicing in the glory of God, after all. Not politely pointing out how nice it is that there is such a being as a Creator because, you know, sunsets and daisies and babies and all. Somewhere in there we sang "We are marching in the light of God" and by god, we sounded like we really were :)
Anyway after the African part Sandra belted out the gospel section like never before, then we started the mixing of styles and songs and by the end, as we mixed all three and then came back together for the Hallelujahs, the audience was actually already standing and clapping and cheering before we even ended the piece. Our big finale (full choir fortissimo, first sopranos holding a high A for five bars) was kinda drowned out by the applause.
COOL!!!
