All My Heart

It was a good day. I led about 30 minutes of rehearsal on Belshazzar's Feast. My teacher had hoped I would get through rehearsal 24. We started at rehearsal 11 and made it through rehearsal 14. In 30 minutes. But they worked hard and improvements were made. I spent more time than expected with the tenors, who didn't seem to know their notes or rhythms very well. Their section leader told me the tenors really worked rehearsal 15-24, but not 11-14. Either way, we made progress and I wish I would have had more time with them.

I loved the song "All My Heart This Night Rejoices" by Stroope. Love love love it.

Tomorrow morning I take off for Reno. I look forward to all the choir concerts coming up. I hope they are good, or I will get bored. The thought of sitting through three days of choir concerts is exciting, but I have to keep my enthusiasm up for it. In the immediate future, I look forward to the ecumenical service tomorrow night.

We had choral master class tonight with a guest teacher. He is a high school teacher in the area who got his masters at the university. He was great! He was an interesting teacher and gave good feedback. I chatted with him for a little bit afterwards and we commiserated about the program, the good things and the drawbacks, and how to view graduate school in general.

I have been listening to the CD "The Road Home", sung by Luther College's Nordic Choir and conducted Craig Arnold. I really love it.

Choose Something

2 Rehearsals left until our benefit concert on March 16. I am so excited- music being used for a good purpose! I am so proud of the work my ladies have done. They have worked hard. They continue to work hard.

They are singing a song called "Famine Song". It is awesome. First, it is extremely singable. The ladies basically sight read it and almost all the notes were right. It lends itself to movement and dynamics. I cannot wait to hear how it goes at the concert.

We had our first joint rehearsal with the men. They did fairly well. It will be a good song. I am conducting "Choose Something Like a Star". It potentially can flop if the energy lessens. This concert is going to be emotionally exhausting. I expect to cry at least once. But I will try not to.

Tomorrow I lead 30 minutes of rehearsal with the choir I sing in. I think it will go better this time. I know what I'm walking into- and tomorrow I'm going to set down a firm rehearsal plan. I look forward to it.

I thought maybe I could do my recital next semester. So I e-mailed my teacher. My thought process was that singers would be too busy to commit to my recital in the spring, so if I moved my recital to the fall, that might alleviate that problem. My teacher told me my recital would be in spring of 2013 and that I would use either the Women's Choir, the choir I sing in, or the Chamber Choir. To be honest, I didn't expect that I would get to use one of the mixed choirs for my recital. However, that is really exciting.

Apple

I spent some time practicing conducting this morning.

And I went to the Apple Store.

Ashes

Today should be a full, good day. Next week I go to Reno for an ACDA conference, so over the next few days I need to get a head start on my homework for the next couple of weeks- some diction, a midterm essay, extra songs to analyze for choral master class. It shouldn't be too crazy, I just need to do it. I created a rough outline of my midterm essay last night, but it really is quite rough.

Ash Wednesday... I read this morning that, among other things, ashes are seen as a sign of cleansing. I had never thought about it like that before.

Perlman

Last night John and I saw Itzhak Perlman. It was really awesome!

It is a good weekend to push the "reset" button. I don't have to be at school today for any reason, as most music things today have been cancelled. So this morning I have been working on creating "lists" on Facebook. I like the idea of limiting who sees certain posts or comments.

I need to do some conducting today and work on diction, which I'll probably start soon. I am so extremely glad today does not include a sectional and a meeting.

Singable

My women had a pretty great rehearsal the other night. We have 4 rehearsals left before our concert, so it will be intense the next couple of rehearsals. We ended rehearsal with a song called "Famine Song" by Matthew Culloton. The ladies love this song. And it is really singable. We began with Dona Nobis Pacem (the round)- and I moved it to the key of Ab. G sat in a funny place and the women could not sing it in tune. Ab was better, although still a little rough. I thought about trying Gb, so maybe next week. We did some work on Lift Thine Eyes and Regina Coeli, as well as Good News. We also got a new piece. We are singing two joint pieces with the men- Choose Something Like a Star is the one I am conducting. My colleague has not yet chosen his piece. The women sight read part of it last rehearsal and it went well. A handful of them have sung it before which is extremely helpful.

Tomorrow I am leading half of rehearsal for my choir. Tomorrow morning I'll make some sort of fun rehearsal plan, including warm-ups. Today I have my lessons and a quiz in French Diction.

Opinions

I just finished my score study of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. I know I am flying way to fast past these scores... but for me to get them all in, I need to truck through them. Basically, I take notes on them and their composer as I listen to the piece... then I do some research on the form/keys of the piece. Then as I am listening with the study score in front of me, I also follow form of the piece. The problem is that I can't devote all my listening time to choral masterworks. Perhaps I should. But not only do I need to do other work related things (like listening to octavos), but I also have music I love to listen to that isn't choral master works or choral octavos. I love listening to the Avett Brothers and Ingrid Michaelson, but sometimes I really miss listening to "lesser" music like the Backstreet Boys or Ace of Base. I love this stuff- it is the first music I really connected with so it transports me to a different place in time, a simpler way of viewing the world and frankly a whole lot less depressing. So, I listened to Beethoven this morning- and now I'm listening to the Backstreet Boys. Later today I need to study Stravinsky.

Beethoven was great, by the way!

So today's real musing is about opinions. It seems that I generally like all music. I have never sung or conducted a piece I didn't like. I have never spent any amount of time with a song I did not end up liking, from Sufjan Stevens to Steve Reich. At times I have wondered if I need to be more discerning- or try to find a way not love just about every piece of music I come in contact with. It seems to me that people can do that and in a way I am envious of this. I have friends who will hear a piece of music they have sung before and exclaim, "Oh! I can't stand that song. I had to sing it once." I have heard some conductors express indifference or even displeasure with a piece. But I have never had those reactions. On the other hand, I recognize this is a blessing. It allows me to love all the music I put in front of my ensembles and share that with them. It also makes singing much more pleasant, as I can't imagine singing a song I didn't care for.

Contacts

It's Thursday evening. I can hardly believe it. I don't really know where the time went.

Big weekend of school stuff- Belshazzar's Feast (the next section is longer), diction (homework plus a quiz next week), conducting master class music, and... I am starting my study of Missa Solemnis. I finished St John Passion yesterday. From Bach to Beethoven.

St John Passion

So I am sitting at a Starbucks on campus for the Women's Choir first Coffee Break of the semester. It may have been a bad time. No one is here yet. But the time goes until 12:30, so time for ladies to stop by. Even if no one shows up, I will still have another one this semester- at a different time. Maybe it is too early in the semester for stress?

At any rate, I am listening to the St John Passion, following along in my mini score, sipping my nonfat chai latte. And again I must reiterate how much I love Bach. Listening to the chorus sing "Kreuzige!" ("crucify him")... Chills. The story in sung form is amazing... The writing and painting of the action is beautiful.

I am going to listen to more of St John Passion, but I highly encourage all of you to listen to the opening chorus of the St John Passion.

Not about the Super Bowl...

On Friday I finished listening to (and following along with in the score) the St Matthew Passion. Tonight I start the St John Passion. My goal is to be on Beethoven by the end of the week.

I realized today that I had my first voice lesson but have not practiced. If I have time, I should do that tomorrow. I think I can practice on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays (maybe Fridays). Wednesdays is my lesson.

My conducting practice sessions have been going by very quickly. There are specific things I am working on and because of this focus, the time flies. I would actually like to practice longer, but normally I just don't have a lot of time.

I can't seem to figure out why I feel so insanely busy this semester. Maybe it's because my days are flipped around (doing my evening things in the morning)... maybe it's because in half of my free time I am thinking about wedding planning... or am studying for a test I am taking in the spring of next year. I just really hope that next semester doesn't feel like this. I'm not so worried about having a melt down (which very well may happen if I get too busy)- I would get over that. But I'm worried it's going to cause me to age. I'm so vain.

I just read a document my Gender and Music teacher put up on the website. It was a list of potential topics for our final paper. The funny part? On the list of topics was Barbara Strozzi's First Book of Madrigals- with my name is capital letters behind it.

Ready for Monday!

CSUN

Sometimes I wish I could just conduct choirs, teach a conducting class, and be a protestor of stupid decisions. Is that too much to ask?

By the way, it was a very solid day today. Productive. I listened to the first half of St Matthew Passion while following a score. I hope to finish it tomorrow. I had diction. I had a voice lesson (my teacher is wonderful). I had a conducting lesson (which also was very productive). I still think my semester is going to kick my butt.