15 June 2007

Singin' in the Rain

Tonight I am singing in my first concert with the BCS, and am greatly looking forward to it. We had our dress rehearsal earlier this week, and although singing in a big cavernous cathedral-like church with mile-long reverb makes us feel like we are singing through butter, and forces us to take everything a notch slower (so it all doesn't become a dissonant mess), it is such an awesome feeling to finish with a big chord, cut off, and let the sound swim around in the air forever.

We're singing five pieces from the Rachmaninoff All-Night Vigil, four Duruflé Motets, Fauré's Cantique de Jean Racine, and the Fauré Requiem, as well as a contemporary piece by our conductor. It involves whole-note scales, chanting things, and big puffs of haaaahhhhh to create a windy effect; it's actually quite cool.

I'm always excited about choral concerts: they are the one performance situation that I don't rather loathe. I'm on stage with a large group of people, so it's not just me, and there's nothing like the synergy of an intently focused group of singers creating something bigger than all of them put together to make chills run up and down my spine.

When I was home, my mom and brother and I were reminiscing about the time when I sang in an All-New England's choir in high school and the choir royally messed up one of the pieces (it was one of these modern pieces, called The Creation, with a electronica tape, and the cue was wrong so the whole entire piece was out of sync with the tape). After the concert, I cried. I was so extremely disappointed that we had ruined the piece and in my mind ruined the whole concert. I remember being outraged that all the other kids were just laughing and gathering their bags to go home, seemingly unconcerned about the royal mess-up. Singing in choral concerts give me a high like nothing else, and that night was a low crash instead.

I hope I've learned not to take it so badly if a concert doesn't go so well, but I am looking forward to that euphoric musical high.

(Oh, and the post title is because we'll be singing, and I'm pretty sure it'll be raining. Yesterday it poured so hard I thought the frites stand across the street might float away.)

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