Christmas concert babblings
Dec. 22nd, 2003 11:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciroccojThis will be of no interest to anybody who isn't into choirs, but hey. My lj, and I'm into choirs, so here it is :)
Yesterday's concert was really, really cool. It was at the Cumberland Heritage Museum, a sort of village from the past (old church, old one-room schoolhouse, etc) and I'm going to have to take my kids there this summer. Anyway, the concert was in the old church, and had 5 choirs - 2 from local churches, one from a local school, the men's section of the Ottawa Regional Youth Choir (my old choir from when I was in high school), and our new choir, (Harmonia).
2nd Annual Cumberland Community Carol Sing
Sunday, December 21, 2003
Audience Carol: O Come All Ye Faithful
Village Choir (Choir of St. Andrew's United Church & Choir of St. Mark's Anglican Church)
O Night Divine - David Angerman & Joseph M. Martin
Glory to God in the Highest - Jay Althouse
Audience Carol: Once in Royal David's City
Riverview Public School Choir
Ring the News on Christmas Morn - Anonymous
African Noel - Trad. African Carol
Jingle Bells (children from the audience make their way to the front to sing!)
Children's Carol: The First Noel
Harmonia Choir of Eastern Ottawa
Nativity Carol - John Rutter
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day - Mark G. Sirett*
Hodie Christus Natus Est - Healey Willan*
Audience Carol: Huron Carol
Bethlehem's Stjarna - Ivar Wedeen
The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy (with ORYC Men) - Stephen Hatfield *
Audience Carol: Joy to the World
Ottawa Regional Youth Choir Men's Chorus
Christmas Angel - Corlynn Hanney*
Betelehemu - Via Olutunji, arr. Wendell Whalum
Audience Carol: Les Anges de nos Campagnes
Massed Choirs
In the Bleak Midwinter - Harold Darke
Audience Carol: Hark the Herald Angels Sing
* indicates Canadian composer/arranger
Since this was a community sing, it was a lot less formal than regular concerts. The kid's choir (which normally has about 20 members) had only 8, but they still got up there and sang (not terribly well - it's tough for 8 kids to carry a choir) and were soundly cheered by the audience for being such good sports :) When the kids from the audience came up, not a single one of them sang a word; they just stared at the audience while the choir kids sang The First Noel. Still got cheers for getting up there. Very casual, cheerful atmosphere.
The Village Choir didn't seem that great either, but then again, they were made up of regular folks from church, and they had a total of 1 tenor and 4 basses, so that was understandable. Nobody seemed to mind.
I love audience carols, especially the ones that have good choir parts, because the melody is supplied by a mass of untrained voices, with a descant rising above and a harmony below, and... it's just indescribable, how moving and lovely the swell of sound is. I especially love singing descant for O Come All Ye Faithful, where the descant does a response pattern with the chorus - the main choir singing 'Oh come let us adore him', answered by the descant echoing above them.
Anyway, by the time we got up there, the audience was pretty relaxed and happy. As were we, since the choirs got to sit with the audience when we weren't on stage. Our Nativity Carol went off without a hitch for once, I Heard The Bells was well done too, and Hodie Christus Natus Est was actually amazing. We handled all the tricky bits and tempo and key changes and bizarre contrapuntal sections perfectly, and just about got a standing ovation after the final line.
I think the Huron Carol is probably one of my favourite Christmas carols. Doing it with the audience was lovely. It's so... reverent, in a quiet, understated way. Celebrating something wonderful without making a huge fuss over it.
(Here's a couple of sites, for people who've never heard of this song before: The Huron Carol sung in the Huron language, lyrics with English translation provided. And here it is played on a harp, faster tempo, by Yolanda Kondonassis. For some reason, I can't find a single sound file with the English lyrics.)
Betlehem Stjarna also went off without a hitch, and got a big round of applause. I'm just glad we were able to get our mouths around the Swedish lyrics, since not one of us actually speaks Swedish.
And our final song, The Virgin Mary, was great as a finale for our choir. We actually got into it, and didn't sound quite as much like a bunch of stiff white people trying to fake a West Indian calypso vibe. It also helped that we had the men from the ORYC Youth Choir, because our guys were really struggling with it for lack of numbers.
Then the ORYC Men took over, and... wow. There were only about 12 of them, and they're young guys, but the sound was gorgeous. Their first, Christmas Angel, was pretty much a solo for one of the guys while the rest just hummed along, and... it was so incredibly sweet. The lyrics say something like, "If I had the voice of an angel..." and I kept thinking, Oh, sweetie, you do! Lovely, clear, and wonderful. I think most of the audience felt like giving him a hug by the end. He also almost got a standing ovation. (Edit: here's a sound bite of a woman doing the song - not as well as David did).
Then they did Betelehemu, which I think was an African carol, and again... wow. The voices on those guys were amazing. I don't remember the guys in the ORYC having such a rich sound when I was there - I recall that many of them hadn't quite settled into their adult range yet, and tended to sound reedy or forced. Not these guys.
Then Les Anges with the audience, which is always fun to sing, then all the choirs got up to sing In the Bleak Midwinter, which sounds about 1000% better with 60 voices than with 20. Especially the men's verse.
Then the finale was another audience carol, with the sopranos doing their descant thing again, to Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Great ending.
::happy choir-geek sigh::
And now I'm looking forward to next year's Community Sing :)
Yesterday's concert was really, really cool. It was at the Cumberland Heritage Museum, a sort of village from the past (old church, old one-room schoolhouse, etc) and I'm going to have to take my kids there this summer. Anyway, the concert was in the old church, and had 5 choirs - 2 from local churches, one from a local school, the men's section of the Ottawa Regional Youth Choir (my old choir from when I was in high school), and our new choir, (Harmonia).
Sunday, December 21, 2003
Audience Carol: O Come All Ye Faithful
Village Choir (Choir of St. Andrew's United Church & Choir of St. Mark's Anglican Church)
O Night Divine - David Angerman & Joseph M. Martin
Glory to God in the Highest - Jay Althouse
Audience Carol: Once in Royal David's City
Riverview Public School Choir
Ring the News on Christmas Morn - Anonymous
African Noel - Trad. African Carol
Jingle Bells (children from the audience make their way to the front to sing!)
Children's Carol: The First Noel
Harmonia Choir of Eastern Ottawa
Nativity Carol - John Rutter
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day - Mark G. Sirett*
Hodie Christus Natus Est - Healey Willan*
Audience Carol: Huron Carol
Bethlehem's Stjarna - Ivar Wedeen
The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy (with ORYC Men) - Stephen Hatfield *
Audience Carol: Joy to the World
Ottawa Regional Youth Choir Men's Chorus
Christmas Angel - Corlynn Hanney*
Betelehemu - Via Olutunji, arr. Wendell Whalum
Audience Carol: Les Anges de nos Campagnes
Massed Choirs
In the Bleak Midwinter - Harold Darke
Audience Carol: Hark the Herald Angels Sing
* indicates Canadian composer/arranger
Since this was a community sing, it was a lot less formal than regular concerts. The kid's choir (which normally has about 20 members) had only 8, but they still got up there and sang (not terribly well - it's tough for 8 kids to carry a choir) and were soundly cheered by the audience for being such good sports :) When the kids from the audience came up, not a single one of them sang a word; they just stared at the audience while the choir kids sang The First Noel. Still got cheers for getting up there. Very casual, cheerful atmosphere.
The Village Choir didn't seem that great either, but then again, they were made up of regular folks from church, and they had a total of 1 tenor and 4 basses, so that was understandable. Nobody seemed to mind.
I love audience carols, especially the ones that have good choir parts, because the melody is supplied by a mass of untrained voices, with a descant rising above and a harmony below, and... it's just indescribable, how moving and lovely the swell of sound is. I especially love singing descant for O Come All Ye Faithful, where the descant does a response pattern with the chorus - the main choir singing 'Oh come let us adore him', answered by the descant echoing above them.
Anyway, by the time we got up there, the audience was pretty relaxed and happy. As were we, since the choirs got to sit with the audience when we weren't on stage. Our Nativity Carol went off without a hitch for once, I Heard The Bells was well done too, and Hodie Christus Natus Est was actually amazing. We handled all the tricky bits and tempo and key changes and bizarre contrapuntal sections perfectly, and just about got a standing ovation after the final line.
I think the Huron Carol is probably one of my favourite Christmas carols. Doing it with the audience was lovely. It's so... reverent, in a quiet, understated way. Celebrating something wonderful without making a huge fuss over it.
(Here's a couple of sites, for people who've never heard of this song before: The Huron Carol sung in the Huron language, lyrics with English translation provided. And here it is played on a harp, faster tempo, by Yolanda Kondonassis. For some reason, I can't find a single sound file with the English lyrics.)
Betlehem Stjarna also went off without a hitch, and got a big round of applause. I'm just glad we were able to get our mouths around the Swedish lyrics, since not one of us actually speaks Swedish.
And our final song, The Virgin Mary, was great as a finale for our choir. We actually got into it, and didn't sound quite as much like a bunch of stiff white people trying to fake a West Indian calypso vibe. It also helped that we had the men from the ORYC Youth Choir, because our guys were really struggling with it for lack of numbers.
Then the ORYC Men took over, and... wow. There were only about 12 of them, and they're young guys, but the sound was gorgeous. Their first, Christmas Angel, was pretty much a solo for one of the guys while the rest just hummed along, and... it was so incredibly sweet. The lyrics say something like, "If I had the voice of an angel..." and I kept thinking, Oh, sweetie, you do! Lovely, clear, and wonderful. I think most of the audience felt like giving him a hug by the end. He also almost got a standing ovation. (Edit: here's a sound bite of a woman doing the song - not as well as David did).
Then they did Betelehemu, which I think was an African carol, and again... wow. The voices on those guys were amazing. I don't remember the guys in the ORYC having such a rich sound when I was there - I recall that many of them hadn't quite settled into their adult range yet, and tended to sound reedy or forced. Not these guys.
Then Les Anges with the audience, which is always fun to sing, then all the choirs got up to sing In the Bleak Midwinter, which sounds about 1000% better with 60 voices than with 20. Especially the men's verse.
Then the finale was another audience carol, with the sopranos doing their descant thing again, to Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Great ending.
::happy choir-geek sigh::
And now I'm looking forward to next year's Community Sing :)
- e-mail - 2 cards, old addresses, esp Andy
- Shelter - look up all Medee's e-mails
- lj update - ADR, Kingston
go through old e-mails- iterum fic
- website-sympatico.ca
- Promises pictures
- scan in Jean Chretien article
look up wedding sites for Karen- read Chris' TBI books and the library's challenging kids package
pay Debbie- fb ff.n - JJ and Pants Shopping CI
finish Christmas cards- make folder for Voyager fic
- clear surfaces
- wrap presents
- laundry
change bedsrenew licence & registration- call Joe's Car Radio
Dr. T.
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no subject
Date: 2003-12-22 08:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-22 01:29 pm (UTC)Yeah, it's strange... I was raised agnostic/atheist, so you'd think that the whole 'Birth of the Son of God' thing wouldn't have much resonance with me, but singing carols with a choir brings me the closest to really getting what Christianity is supposed to be all about. It's hard to hold on to agnosticism when you hear and feel such incredible music. It just seems like something that beautiful couldn't just appear on its own.