Surprise Rehearsal

Tuesday I was asked to come up and conduct in choir. This was unexpected- and it was a song I have not conducted before. It was great. My teacher gave me a little feedback and I tried what he wanted. After rehearsal, he told me I did a great job and his compliment was so genuine. It was nice to hear.

My teacher was gone yesterday and will be gone today. He has a big festival he's conducting this weekend and is immersed in rehearsals and logistical decisions.

Yesterday I taught undergrad conducting. I was asked to put together a lesson plan covering the concepts they had read about over a month ago. I had a three page lesson plan. We made it through not quite half. A lot of questions were asked and hopefully things were clarified. There was a fire drill during the class period, so we lost about 10 minutes of class time. It was fun and I think I would really enjoy teaching conducting.

After class, I saw a friend (who also happens to be the undergrad choral office assistant) and asked her if she knew what was happening in choir, since our teacher was not there. Her response was, "Yes, he sent out an e-mail. You're in charge of the first 50 minutes of rehearsal." The e-mail had went to my junk box. She printed off the e-mail for me and I mentally prepared myself for the rehearsal. In warm-ups, I wanted to make them aware of two things: Vowel alignment and intonation. Their pitch rarely was an issue in the songs I was conducting, but I knew that later in rehearsal when the other choral grad student took over, he would work hard on intonation. Or rather, have the choir work on listening.

In the second piece I worked on, the choir was asked to sing a lot of things softly. But intensely. And it was a different experience working with a group that had a wide range of dynamics. It made me think about how finding an ensemble's true "piano" would help open up possibilities of expression. I do not think I demand true "piano" from a group often. Yesterday was different and it was well worth it.

I also had the group sing through the first movement of Rutter's Gloria. That's the one I am conducting at the beginning of December. I thought we would have plenty of time to work on things. But we didn't and I ended up singing past mistakes they would have fixed had there been time.

It's cool here today. I'm going to put on a sweatshirt for my run.