It's a great weekend!

What's so great about this weekend?

I have no big presentation on Tuesday!  I have a paper to write for conducting class on Hans Leo Hassler.  I have to answer a few questions about some early German lute tablature.  And I am starting preliminary research on my next presentation (at the end of the month).  Tomorrow I will actually spend some time completely away from school- I won't even let it enter my brain for a couple hours.  I am excited.

But not tonight.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about choirs and auditions.  What do I listen for?  It really is different for most conductors.  I have more of a bent toward voices like I heard in my masters.  Before my masters, I had a bent toward the midwest Lutheran tradition.  I'm sure what I listen for will change and I am excited to start auditioning and working with my own choir, although not quite yet.

The big question running through my head now is about solo voices in a choir.  This pondering seems to come up every couple of years or so.  The group I sang with in my masters was an ensemble with many full, big voices.  But the ensemble was awesome.  And more than that, it felt good to sing with that ensemble.  I am constantly holding my voice back now in my current ensemble.  But that, of course, could be me and could have nothing to do with the expectations of sound... however, in reality, it's probably a combination.

Next entry, I think I will blog about a piece. Not sure which one yet.