Fun stuff this summer - music update

I've done a lot of complaining and dwelling on sad events lately, and the complaining's not over, but aside from the huge tax issue and losing Sepp this summer has been a great one. Here's some of what's been going on, musically speaking:


Wicker Park Choral Singers concerts: WPCS continues to be a wonderful group of which to be a part. After our concerts our conductor sent an e-mail with thoughts on how the group is doing, and where he sees it going, and from what I gathered it will continue to be an outreach group. It's funny, and it probably has a lot to do with the personality of the group, but while the volunteering nature of the group sort of takes the pressure off, it also makes me want to be more committed to this group.


Our concerts this time around were called "Angels & Demons" and all of the music had to do with...yup, angels or demonic characters. There were some choral favorites (Elijah Rock), some general crowd pleasers (an arrangement of Billy Joel's Lullabye) and some new/out there stuff (Will Todd's Angel Song II, and Bubble, Bubble Toil and Trouble by some Swedish guy who's not yet 30). All really neat music, alot of which was new for me.


Aside from the creative programming, the folks who run the group have been looking for more performance opportunities for us. This time around we did 3 concerts - one in Wicker Park, one in St. Charles, and one downtown at the Chicago Cultural Center. While all of them were great, the one in Wicker Park was I think the most special for me, which is funny given that it was a 90 degree day in Chicago and the church was well over 95. Physiologically it probably had something to do with the heat and the fact that I was pushing so much air, but I had another one of those orgasmic performance experiences - you know, one of those times where everything seems perfect, you feel elated, and you can't feel your body. The other concerts were great, too, but not that good!


That all got me to thinking about another question: if I could have either a) orgasmic musical experiences, or b) orgasms for the rest of my life, but I had to choose only one, which would it be? After not much thought I chose A. I finally remembered to ask Trey about that this weekend, and he agreed. I figured he would, and I'm glad he did.


Recital: At the end of July I was part of a recital with a couple of other girls in the area. I'd been far to edgy about it for months, probably because I hadn't done a recital in years, had gotten out of the habit of memorizing my rep, and picked hard stuff. I'd decided on the Vilia Lied from Merry Widow, and Adele's aria from Die Fledermaus, and up until about a week beforehand I was seriously thinking about canning the 2nd piece.

Well, it's amazing what practicing a 1/2 step up, and what singing in a live space, will do for you. I felt great vocally, and felt like it was easy. I didn't get nervous breathing issues, and my leg shaking thing only crept in for a few seconds at the end of my first number (I did the Adele aria first to get it over with). It just all felt very comfortable. Hooray!

The three of us did a few numbers together, including "Three Little Maids" from The Mikado, and "How do you solve a problem like Maria" from Sound of Music. I think the audience got a particular kick out of the latter, since we found little habits to wear.

Something else that was particularly cool was that Trey and I did a piece together. Richard Strauss wrote a piece called "Alphorn" for soprano & horn. He's putting it on his fall recital for school, and we decided to do it at my July recital first. There's just something so...and I can't quite find the right word to describe it...but something so ____ about performing with someone you have such chemistry with to begin with.

Kindergruppe: Last fun thing - I found a German version of "O, Susanna" for the kids to sing, the idea being that we'll perform one verse in German & one in English. The first time we went through it at practice they were looking at my like I was crazy, but I think that might have something to do with some words that are a bit more complicated. We spent a long time working on the German and when we were finished I figured they were spent, but they actually requested that we sing through the English verse. The next time we had practice they did much better, so I think this is going to work. :-)

I'll leave it at that for now. Next post - road-trippin'. :-)