Hello Everyone,
Thanks for all of your wonderful work at our rehearsal tonight. 3 hours is a loooooooong rehearsal and I appreciate all of your effort. I know your arms got a workout holding your folders.
We have just a few polishing details to go – guest musicians will join us on Thursday – looking forward to hearing them! After rehearsal, we decided that the guest musicians will be on the same side as Deb…so soloists and body percussionists, you will have all of the space to my right.
Please thank Karla for our beautiful program layout and printing and Amy for her proofreading.The program looks gorgeous – THANK YOU! Feels fabulous to hold it in my hand! Karla also posted the color version on our website. 🙂
Wonderful playing, Deb – and thank you for your ‘pearls of wisdom’ on our rep. Your insights are spot on and much appreciated,
So wonderful to have both Clare S. and Deb G. with us at rehearsal – thanks for sharing your beautiful spirits with us tonight.
Our biggest overall challenge is to LOOK UP! I bet you have a lot of this music very close to being memorized…please lift your eyes off of the music. As Deb pointed out, your eyes are all you have of your face to communicate expression…tops of heads don’t work so well. People can imagine the part of your face behind your mask being engaged if you can involve everything above your mask. Also, it will really help us to acheive better ensemble. Trust your eyes, not your ears (you need those, too! But eyes for staying with me and with each other). With all of the reverb in our performance space, if you ‘wait’ to hear your part, we will not be together.
Prayer for Ukraine
- Sounds so lovely and a perfect way to begin our concert as we recognize others who need our help and support.
- Tuning challenges in mm. 15-16, 23-24, and 27-28 where we were under the pitch so mark an arrow UP in those places. As we reached the cadence, our pitch fell and then we recovered at the beginning of the next phrase. Altos, when you ascend to middle C – go higher! Sopranos when you descend to your last note in the phrase, make those descending intervals smaller.
Rise Up
- So exciting (the last chord is stunning!)
- Our final consonants in our phrases are a bit sloppy so please look up and let’s unify our endings such as the F in ‘life’ and the K in ‘work.’
Sing My Child
- Nice duet, Amy and Wendy!
- Those 2 and 3 syllable words (morning, dawning, unfolding, learning, evening, succeeding) are still too loud on the last syllable…almost sound punched. It would perhaps help for you to underline the stressed syllable in your score and then sing the other ones softer.
- We aren’t getting to m. 19 in tune…and then the Eb chord in the soprano parts in mm. 19-20 is flat.
- Our ensemble was our biggest challenge in this piece – it really will help for everyone to look up!
Be Like the Bird
- Interestingly, we were out of tune tonight on our first 3 notes…we never really made it to middle C for ‘bird.’ Then we proceeded to sing the piece about a quarter tone flat. Hopefully awareness will help!
- The 5 parts are nicely balanced.
- The phrasing is really pretty once we don’t poud beat 4!
Richer for Her
- Sounds lovely!
Song of Miriam
- We need to start softer!
- The 2 syllable word syllabic stress on the first page are GREAT!
- We are close on the tempos…just please try to look up so that we can stay together.
The Imaginary Garden
- Lovely solo, Kinley!
- The tuning is soooooooo much better. However, there are still intonation challenges in mm. 32-34: altos sing your ascending intervals bigger and S2s sing your descending intervals smaller. S1s in mm. 44-48 were under pitch. We proceeded about a quarter tone flat at m. 49. By m. 73 we settled into a half step flat. So, much improved, but maybe we can really sparkle on this one on Thursday. We can try it in mixed formation at the beginning of the rehearsal on Thursday and just see what happens.
- Intonation aside, there are many beautiful aspects of this piece. The parts weaving in and out are quite stunning.
Nothing Short of Grace
- We have not sung through this in quite a while so we were a bit rusty but I think overall in good shape. The section with noticeable errors is mm. 35-50 – so please look it over and sing it a few times with our practice files.
Storm Comin’
- Sorry I started this one a bit fast (blowing like a hurricane!). I know that made the 16th notes a challenge for the Altos. I’ll calm it down a bit for Thursday…but not much because it sounded really good!
- Body percussion was awesome!
- Be sure that you are engaged mind and body even when not singing. People come to SEE concerts so we know how we look is an important part of our performance.
- Intonation is IMPRESSIVELY accurate! B-minor is our key!
- Again, look up, please!
O Sister
- This sounds lovely! Hope you enjoy singing this piece as much as I enjoy hearing you sing it!
- Tricia and Rachel – you sound great together!
- Check your part in m. 57 – we were not all together there.
She Who Makes Her Meaning Clear
- Back row please sing the small group part – LOUD and proud!
- Altos – we were flat by m. 2. We never sang accurately up from the starting pitch to reach the middle C and then the Db in m. 2. If you have time, sing through this with the practice files and think all of those ascending intervals really high! Even after we restarted the piece at m. 29 we quickly went out of tune.
- Please review your counting in m. 41. That is a 3/2 measure and we added some beats…I’m sure you noticed!
- We really struggled with our ensemble on this piece, but I think we were having so many challenges it just wasn’t coming together.
- Thursday we will move back to our sections and see if we can be more successful – I know that we can sing this piece well – we are getting close!
What the Heart Cannot Forget
- Beautiful duet, Janet and Rachel!
- m. 10 altos, add an up arrow to your score because the A for ‘cracked’ is flat…but your phrasing was really nice.
- mm. 16-19 was really good – great job with balance everyone.
- mm. 24-26 your moving parts are so pretty – just look up please so that we stay together!
- altos careful of your entrance in m. 54 (someone was early)
- check your part in m. 61 – an alto wanted to move ahead too early for ‘remembers’
- again the moving parts at. m. 66-71 are lovely but not together – look up!
- Last chord was gorgeous
How Can I Keep from Singing?
- Love to hear you sing (and Deb play) this piece. My heart gets very full (and tries to leak out of my eyes)
- Please try to watch carefully at the tempo changes.
Hope you have a wonderful next few days – looking forward to seeing/hearing you on Thursday at First Presbyterian at 7 PM. Thanks again for all of your beautiful work and for the extra rehearsal this week.
Excited about sharing our music,
Laura