Back on the blog wagon

For those of you who still check in on this blog occasionally, I apologize for the long period of silence.

Now that I can rant about things on the phone to my boyfriend each night (and he patiently listens and gives input where he can), I have had less of an urge to write.

But I’ve recently realized how much ranting I do on the phone, and I’ve decided to give my boyfriend a little break.

Also, it’s fall now, and I’m starting to have more breathing room in my schedule.

Therefore, come November, I will be back on the blog bandwagon and again resume posting stuff weekly.

In the meantime, my choir is performing this coming weekend in McLean, Virginia, at 4 p.m. Sunday October 31.

We gave a wonderful concert last night in Washington, D.C. (standing ovation from the audience) and I’m really looking forward to singing the same music again this weekend at a different location.

I had been struggling with the German diction in the Brahms gypsy songs, despite practicing the words for hours each week, and was pleasantly surprised that I was able to get almost all of the words right and even be able to look up at the director every couple of measures during the concert.

My goal this week is to get the German all but memorized so I can bring another level of emotion to the singing and more attention to the director for this Sunday’s concert.

If you want a break from Halloween-related activities this weekend, come hear me sing with the National Master Chorale. For tickets and more information see our choir’s website.

We’re performing a relatively unknown, but absolutely stunning, mass by Rheinberger, as well as some other chant-like pieces. And for the second half, you’ll get to hear a rousing round of gypsy songs by Brahms that are sure to bring a smile to your face and make you want to tap the floor with your feet to the music.

 

Birth of a new choir

Yesterday I did not cry.

In fact, I did not have to fight back the tears when I joined with 70-some others in singing the inaugural concert of the  new National Master Chorale to a packed audience in the 800+ seat National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC. I am a volunteer singer in the choir.

Our choir was formed after the Master Chorale of Washington was brought to an abrupt close due to financial woes, click here to learn what happened. I sang in that choir for 15 years and felt a great void in my life when it was taken from me. Other members of the choir must have also felt the void because about six months ago, a handful of former MCW members met up with Thomas Colohan and decided to form a new and slightly smaller choir with a new purpose. Check out our website (nationalmasterchorale.org) to learn more.

Last night was the fruit of our labors and it was amazing.

Here are a couple of highlights:

We sang to a packed audience. There’s nothing a singer loves to see more than a throng of eager faces stuffed into every nook and cranny of the concert hall.  I don’t know how many people were squeezed together in the 800+ capacity hall. But I did notice that there were some people standing along the sides and that the ushers during the late seating break had to take away the tape that blocked off some rows (where the sound system wires had been taped) to let people sit there. Even the front rows were packed.

We sang our hearts out and in fine form too. As should be the case after any concert, I felt like I had run a marathon and at the same time attended a big family reunion (the rare kind of reunion that heals the soul and bonds family together).  Yet I also was high in the moment and due to the love that radiated from the audience, choir and director during the concert.

We were one big sound filling the hall and vibrating the rafters. There were many times during the show when I realized I couldn’t distinguish the sound of my voice from any other around me.  One time I questioned for a second whether I was actually singing so I took a breath to hear that some sound had diminished with my inhale — the only sign I could find to signal I had indeed been singing.

The audience understood our words without consulting the program. After the concert, a friend who doesn’t have the best of hearing, said there was no need to look at the words in the program. In fact, he found it to be a distraction from our amazing sound.  Rather, my friend understood what the choir and soloists were saying during the concert as if this person was sitting a few feet in front of the stage — this person was in the balcony during the concert. It’s safe to say it is rare when a choir enunciates the words enough for the audience to understand.

Last night, we proved that a group of people with a passion and talent for music can fight against all odds — our own demands from jobs/careers and families, an economic depression, broken hearts from loosing a choir and a city already saturated with arts and amazing musical groups, etc — to form a new choir that fills a very distinct musical gap in the area and sound f–king amazing after only a couple months of rehearsing and planning.

Today my hope is restored in a musical life. Yet just as a widow never fully heals from the loss of her husband and soul mate, I don’t believe I will ever be fully reconciled with what was taken from us when the MCW was closed and that I’ve lost that musical experience forever.

I did not cry yesterday, not even tears of joy.

I did not weep because there will be more concerts with the National Master Chorale and opportunities for amazing moments of song. I did not weep because the time for mourning is past and the moment for singing praises is at hand.

Thank you God for  leading us through the desert back to the land of music and harmony.

Thank you my friends and family for coming to the concert and giving us a chance to prove our musical selves.

Finally, thank you my new choir family and director for giving me a reason to sing once again.

ps The Washington Post’s review of the concert http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/01/AR2010030103598.html was pretty on-point in my mind. I’m the blob of blond hair in the second row on the far end of the photo.

 

A new start: Out of the ashes rises the phoenix of the National Master Chorale

On Sunday February 28, 2010,  my year of mourning will come to an end, well … mostly.

On that day, I will layer on my stage makeup and bright red lipstick, curl the ends of my long blond hair and climb into my floor-length black velvet skirt, matching shirt and comfortable black leather flats that have stayed tucked in the back of the closet for nearly a year.

My standard concert preparation routine — perfected from 15 years of singing in the Kennedy Center with the now defunct Master Chorale of Washington — will continue as I go about the house-warming up my voice to the tune of favorite hymns and by singing musical scales, nursery rhymes and difficult or mostly memorized sections from the day’s concert repertoire.  Oh and I’ll attempt to drink only mildly warm water and avoid eating dairy, menthol-based or sugar products.

Before I leave the house, I will check to make sure my music is tucked in the concert folder in the correct order  and I’ll stuff my music bag with a bottle of static guard, a fist full of cough drops, a back-up pair of hosiery, needle and black thread and mini-scisors,  a travel-size pack of tissues and my latest crochet project, which I may or may not tinker with in the free time between when our choir warms up and we take the stage.

As you may have by now guessed, I have found a new singing family in the newly formed National Master Chorale. I have decided to fold up and tuck away in the corner of my mind the world of sorrow I suffer(ed) due to the loss of my former choir family. Click on the category Master Chorale of Washington to read background stories about the former choir’s demise.

My year of mourning will end on the day of  the National Master Chorale’s first concert at 7 p.m. Sunday, February 28, at The National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.

Titled Winter into Spring: the concert program will feature the music of Francis Poulenc, Aaron Copland, Morten Lauridsen and other distinguished composers who wrote on themes of transition and transformation. Composer Lauridsen, whose Mid-Winter Songs will be featured during the concert, will give a complimentary pre-concert lecture starting at 6 p.m.

You can buy tickets online if you want to witness this historical event and show your support of the local arts and of me and the new choir’s hopes and dreams and mad-singing skills :-). Even if you don’t care about all the “supporting the arts” stuff, you’ll want to attend this concert because you will get to meet a famous American choral composer and hear a finely tuned choir perform a rare repertoire of 20th century music.

Stop for a second and imagine the feeling of love, joy and hope that will saturate the room as our choir takes the stage to celebrate the fact that, despite all the odds, including a wide-spread economic depression, we have reunited much of our choral family and all our efforts will have come to fruition. How could you not want to be there for that?

Prices are $10 for students (with ID), $20 for balcony and $30 for ground-level orchestra.

The new choir has been featured in the front page of the Washington Post style section and is listed on the Post’s website as an editor’s pick as a top Washington classical music event to attend in the months of February-May (Washington classical music and opera picks)

Now that you have the details of the concert, let me explain my decision to rejoin the ranks of professional choral groups.

I auditioned/joined the new National Master Chorale (NMC) because it is headed by, and was started up through the volunteer hours and blood , sweat and tears (well, maybe not the blood part unless someone got a really bad paper cut) of those of us who sang in the now defunct Master Chorale of Washington. The new NMC is an 80-member choir comprised equally of paid professional and volunteer singers. I am a volunteer member.

A majority of its members were a part of the MCW at the time the board shut it down.  Moreover, our new director Tom Colohan, was assistant director to the former MCW director before Tom went on to hone his own directorial skills and then came back to DC to director our new choir.

Colohan’s enthusiasm and determination to ever strive toward choral perfection is contagious and matches our own. Moreover, his directing style is wonderfully aligned with the style that led us to such great heights in the prior choir. And yet, at times he reminds me enough of our former director that I get a little verklempt inside and even sometimes yearn for one of those poignant and side-splitting funny quips my former director was so famous for making.

Why did I join the new choir?

1.) I will be singing with people who are determined to do whatever it takes:  practicing music at home and/or volunteering every moment of free time to get the organization running, fundraising and marketing plans in full gear and all the concert details locked in place.  I have but spent a mere fraction of time compared to the new board of governors, director and committee leaders and I give them major kudos for all they have done.

2.) I will be singing with people who I consider my choral family.

3.) In the last few months of rehearsals I’ve several times felt myself caught up in the music and our amazing sound just as often happened in the prior group. In other words, I’m getting my chorale high on.

4.) Finally, other than if the Master Chorale were still around, I can’t imagine wanting to sing in any other group.

I hope you can come and join in the celebration!

 

The urge to purge

With the choir ending, I’m finding myself with the urge to purge.

Purge myself of clutter, drama and a busy schedule so I can focus on what’s important.

I can make these changes, but not all at once.

First, and easiest of all will be purging myself of toxic people who come with much too much drama. Note: I’m not saying that I haven’t bathed in my own share of drama. Instead, I believe I’m ready to try to turn a new leaf.

For example, I no longer mind that someone I used to call a friend has a beef with me, because I’ve apologized and there’s nothing more I can do.  Time and again I have forgiven and allowed this person back in my life but this person keeps finding ways to push me away, be angry at me and cause more drama. After a recent outburst when the person screamed out the window at me in the middle of the night spewing profanities and lies, I reached “10.”

In fact, there’s been too much drama in that friendship from the start and with my post-choir closing cleansing ritual I think that friendship will have to remain where it is — purged.

Second goal, clutter reduction.  My fight with clutter has been a life-long struggle. But I’m sick of having an excess of material items in my small apartment. I think it’s time to slowly start paring away at the clutter and keep only the things that are valuable to me and that cannot be easily replaced.

Finally and most difficult of all tasks will be to stop scheduling and committing myself to attending/planning, etc, events. I will continue to spend time with my friends and go to parties and perhaps throw them for special occasions. But I will not go out and seek new entertainment or volunteer opportunities for a while. I am also considering that when this season ends with the Shakespeare Theatre I may not sign up to volunteer next year–an easy way to trim back my commitments.

I hope that in doing these things, I will better be able to focus on what’s important in life and live a more simple life of contentment with more time for a spiritual walk with God.

 

When the music fades…. my search for God

I know I will survive the close of my choir.

I know I will survive living without a musical outlet for the first time in 24 years.

I know my heart will continue to beat, I’ll continue to laugh and somehow find a connection to God outside of praising him with my voice.

But I also know that last Sunday marked a change for me, for my life, my spiritual journey and for where I head from here.

The question in my heart is whether I can again find my tangible link to God without music.

I don’t find church appealing any more and honestly I’ve never found God in church unless the building was empty.

I get distracted in church by my insecurities, by the noises of others, by my lusts and by my longing to belong there and among the people there.

Instead of feeling intimate and loved by God in church, I feel exposed and watched by humans. That’s why for a week in June I’m going to a place where I’ll be allowed to mind my own business and seek God. I’m going to Mepkin Abbey, of the order of Trappist Monks.

I don’t belong among most of the church people I know, that is with all but a few, because I don’t fit in any of their molds. I’m not proper, chaste, pure, closed minded, a slut or searching for a husband or boyfriend from among them.  I just want to find people who I connect with on a spiritual level and who have the same spiritual sincerity.

More importantly I want my spiritual balance to be renewed when I take time to search God out, not to be lost among the insecure and egotistical masses.

Other than in music I’ve only felt an intimate connection to God in one way: silence.

I feel him particularly strongly if that silence is free of human noise pollutants.

I’ve felt God …

*on the ledge of the Grand Canyon with only the wind in my ears

*on a mountain cliff among the sound of leaves

*on a deserted ocean beach early in the morning

*while swimming under water

*while praying in a Quaker church surrounded in silence by people in prayer

*in lunch break prayer sessions in the church around the corner — silence broken only by the sound of homeless people in corner pews snoring

*and in the meadow or woods near my house when I was a child.

I’m not sure what else to say now perhaps I’ll just let the silence speak for itself.

God are you there? I’m ready to slow down and listen now.