Hello Everyone,
It was wonderful to see so many of you at Elisabeth’s lovely service yesterday afternoon. It was a beautiful time to remember Elisabeth and to support one another and Elisabeth’s family in a time of both celebration and loss – it was comforting to be surrounded by WVC sisters.
I have not forgotten our November birthdays – we will celebrate this coming rehearsal. 🙂
Rehearsal Focus
Richer for Her mm. 1-33
– dynamics:
– mm. 2-3 crescendo
– mm. 4-5 decrescendo
– mm. 6-7 crescendo (bring out the alto line in m. 7)
– m. 9 crescendo as indicated in the score
– mm. 13-14 crescendo
– mm. 15-16 decrescendo
– mm. 17-22 crescendo
– mm. 24-25 crescendo
– mm. 26-27 decrescendo
– mm. 28-30 crescendo
– m. 31 decrescendo
– m. 32 begin forte then decrescendo
– the voiced consonants need great warmth – especially the V of ‘love.’
– mm. 25 flip the R of ‘spirit’
She Who Makes Her Meaning Clear mm. 11-49 (I know I originally said we would rehearse mm. 29-58 so we will catch up on 50-58 at our next rehearsal)
– reinforced pitches on our big chords – we will need to work on balance when we have a fuller complement of voices in the room. Sometimes a chord can sound off when one part isn’t loud enough or another part is too loud.
How Can I Keep From Singing? all
– we read through the whole piece and then rehearsed the ‘lala’ section – next time we will focus specifically on mm. 1-42
O Sister mm. 1-20
– singers offered these suggestions (did I remember them all?):
– keep the tempo moving but slow enough to give time for the text and melody to flow smoothly and expressively
– be mindful of the sixteenth pick up into m. 6
– thinking about the text, ‘please be my rain’ and what that may mean to different people (to me, it means the life giving rain that is necessary for growth)
– breathe in the shape of the vowel O as you inhale for each phrase entrance
Looking Ahead to 11/15/21
Rise Up mm. 82-end, then all
– we will review this section first, as it is the most complex
– accents throughout
– dynamics throughout
Nothing Short of Grace all
– we will work this with a metronome – the composer has given us specific performance notes and has stressed the importance of keeping the tempo steady throughout
Storm Comin’ all
– we will continue to work on adding the pitch inflections that are not written in the score.
Sing My Child mm. 95-end, then all
I am so looking forward to our rehearsal next week. See you then!
Hugs,
Laura