The Lord is my shepherd

While singing the Howells Requiem this morning, there is a section based on the promise that He will keep thy soul. Howells personal agony over the loss of his son is so bittersweet. It slips by my mind and directly into my heart. I can't control my emotions because of the comfort that I am not alone to face things too big for me.

Aching Heart

I was watching the News last night. Anyone who knows me knows I don't do that very often. "Its just a lot of suffering that I can't do anything about." I thought. Then this morning when we were singing the "Jesu, meine Freude" by Bach and I realized there is something I can do.  I can sing this with the intention of my whole heart and hope that it soothes someones aching heart.  A few years ago on a tour we sang in the town of Joplin, MO and the intention was clear for us. Ease their aching hearts...
Jesus, my friend...

Heart to Heart

We are one week out today....a week from tomorrow we will board our bus for our two week tour of Texas and Oklahoma.  And today we were "finessing".  Someone once said "music is the international language that communicates heart to heart"  Isn't that true?  Do you have to find words to express that chord that makes your spine tingle?  Or that hush of a triple piano dynamic on the text "see if there is any sorrow like unto my sorrow".  Don't we all feel it?  I felt it today -and it isn't because we're just so amazing.  It's what happens when a group of people come together with their differing opinions and commit to expressing what the composer intended - and what the words inspired him to intend.  The language that communicates heart to heart...

You owe it to your composer...

Today when we were finished with a full run through of Howells "Take him earth for cherishing", the director asked what were we thinking about while we were sang it from memory....Well, it was things like rhythm, or words, or "oh no did I forget to turn off my cell again?". Regretfully it was not Howells tragic loss or Americas loss of JFK....

When I first pick up a piece of new music I notice if the cover has art or not.  (For some reason that is my very first thought. Maybe it came from looking at my moms' piano music when I was playing under the "piano fort" as she practiced when I was little. As an adult I have kept up the habit with no thought about it....til now).

  That is followed by what key, how many parts, notes (are there lots of really black ones!!?), and all the other things that one has to use to learn the composers work.  I have never on my own, picked up a piece and ask first "what is the composer trying to communicate"?  I think I am missing the forest for the trees.  If I think about what I'm going to say before I open my mouth to speak, chances are much better that I won't get lost and whoever is listening will understand me much better. Music is no different.

You have to know where you are heading even if you don't know where you will end up.

Suffering in Exile

We were working on our tour music today and picked up the Lamentations of Jeremiah by Alberto Ginastera.  When we started working on the second movement based on the words "Ego vir videns, ego paupertatem meam" which, loosely translated means, "I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his (Gods') wrath".  There is such a deep sense of miserable agony with no clear release.  The movement starts in the bass line and slowly stretching up to tenor, then alto is added, and finally soprano.
The piece is so haunting that I had to find out more about Mr Ginastera. So I googled him and found some of his history on a website for Seattle Choral Company .  When he wrote this piece around 1942 he was in exile from Argentina and was living in the United States. The work later in the third movement does resolve itself, but the long painful line in the second movement is one of the best settings of this kind of suffering without any anger towards God.  As a matter of fact the moving upward line between the parts gives the sense of prayer in quiet resignation.  While this text was from a Jewish event many centuries before, it reminds me that suffering is not unique to time or space. 

Wardrobe cases

Whenever we roll out the black wardrobe cases and pack them full of the tubs of all of the "need thats'"....shoes, scarves, steamers, safety pins, threads and needles, dresses and tuxes... Its time to get ready for a choir tour. 

Like any other creating process this is when the real self pressure starts.  "Do I know my words ?", "Which shoes should I take ?", "Is my job covered?" and the real question we all ask," Will they see something of God in our music the way I do?" 

I sincerely hope so.

Todays rehearsal

Today we had a chance to go back and sing music from the French Recording that we will sing on tour.  It was fun to pull it out together, dust it off and sing together.  One of my favorites is Benedícta es cælórum Regína by Josquin des Prez from our new recording Sacred Songs of France, Volume I: 1198-1609.  The alto line is really far down there and a ball to sing.  The recording will be released in October, but you can listen to a bit of it here. Enjoy!

Dancing with Angels

Picture in your minds' eye the glitter of sun sparkling off of small pieces of gold tessare, brilliant contrasts of orange and blue, with smokey incense curling in the sunshine up high.
Then listen, you can hear voices dancing around the stone apse singing " Angels and Archangels" from the Missa choralis mass by Franz Liszt. This part of the mass always sounds like a waltz to me. There is so much gracefulness and joyful respect you are  swept away for a moment. For that stretch of time you feel there is no space between Heaven and Earth.
It can transfigure your life.

Tradition

Evensong is a old tradition in the church. When I was nineteen I spent almost a year with my parents in Cambridge England. One of my very favorite things to do was to ride my fold-up bicycle to St Johns College for evensong. The sun would be starting to go down across the Backs (the grassy area behind the colleges where the River Cam travels through).
We also sing evensong at our church and it's still magically peaceful. And the sun setting thru the stained glass and the gold wall around it is gorgeous.

Take him earth

Today we spent some time in the Church of the Transfiguration (which is where Gloriae Dei Cantores calls home) singing some tour music. The beauty of the art and the acoustics are so rewarding to experience singing in. We sang the piece that Howells wrote for JFK (Take Him, Earth for Cherishing) around the font. Its so haunting especially this time of year when we remember the shared loss of 9/11. I love it when a work becomes of the moment like that. It makes your singing something you have to do-  living in the moment.

The knife edge of Bach

At nine o'clock this morning our tour choir gathered itself into a few circles and started singing Jesu, meine Freude by Johann Sebastian Bach. We have sung this work over the years- long enough for me to change from a second soprano to a first alto. The first time we took this on tour I was pregnant with my third child who would tumble around in response to it. This was the only work she would do this with... so I always had a small smile....

 I have strong feelings when I hear this work. One of my favorite sections is Gute Nacht, or Good Night.  Which to me is the story of a soul turning from the goals and attractions of the world and turning to face God.  As with any really great composer it is so easy to get lost in the music and become unaware of your technique.  It is a fine balance between style and emotion that is a challenge for any singer if you are too aware of keeping clean style you can sound like a cold machine and if you are too emotional you are mushy and wobble all over the place !  So here's hoping we can balance on the knifes edge.....

At the Service of the Music

I was reading an interview today with Joshua Bell.  He was answering Jeff Kaliss from San Francisco Classical Voice  about what he wears during a performance. In his answer about clothes was this phrase, "At the service of the music".  I know he was talking about not limiting his range of motion with his body, but that phrase could be applied to everything that we do when we are preparing any piece of music.

As a singer I am looking at the piece of music and running a checklist of what sound placement in my body and head I need, the style of the music,phrase length, and many other things. (honestly its'a lot like a pilots pre flight check...including the crash and burn if you are not all set before you launch!)

If you have everything as it should be however, there is a connection inside your body that I always think of as the place for my heart and soul. It sometimes leaps with joy, like seeing a loved one after years, or the first look at your new baby's face, then sometimes it just quietly babbles like a running brook, or is still as a mirror. 

What could be more rewarding ?

New look at an Old Friend

Saturday I was raking a shell path. Picking up old leaves and combing through the nearby grass with my hands to put back the white bits of shell that were so obviously out of place.  I felt a deep satisfaction when I looked back and saw how clean it was.
Today we were working on a old Christmastime friend, The Messiah by Handel.  Just about everyone knows enough of this work to hum along in one place or another.  The catch is that we are using a different edition (Barenreiter) than in the past. So "His yoke is easy, and his burthen is light" was not quite the same.  As with the white shells, the notes that were not right became obviously out of place. So we gathered our metronome and tuning fork and repeated our lines slower and then up to tempo until they were right.  This took determination to not miss anything or accept notes not written. But when the rehearsal was over, like the shell path, I thought back and felt deep satisfaction at how clean we became. Now when I sing this I will not be thinking about notes and rhythm but about the joy the words really contain "his yoke is easy, and his burthen is light".

Memory work

How a thing grows in the human memory, in the human imagination, when love, worship, and all that lies in the human heart, is there to encourage it.
      - Thomas Carlyle

 I was groping for words to explain why it is so important to Gloriae Dei Cantores to memorize our concert music (as well as our recording music).  I came across this quote and there was that inner hum of recognized  truth.  Thomas Carlyle has expressed our position perfectly.   It is a kind of "falling in love" that happens when there is no paper barrier between the singer and listener.  When the singer is not distracted by the markings and the "science" of following what is on the page, and instead has to listen to what the heart says, then there is real music. 

  There has been a lot of talk about how Classical Music has to be come more accessible to the listener.  Isn't this the answer ?  Be in the moment, share the experience.

Our Next Release

 We just got this cover approved a few days ago. I couldn't wait to show it off!
When the cover image for a recording is chosen we have in our minds' ear what the recording's personality is.  This recording to me was one of the most elegant, sometimes strong, and sometimes delicate to sing.  We learned the music had to come directly from the Heart, or it was clumsy and awkward.
 
This recording will be available by October First.