I was extremely pleased with tonight. As a whole, I think that it was one of the most impressive concerts we've given in my time at UAB. My early thoughts:
1. Men's Choir: Fantastic. Charles Henry did a tremendous job working with the men on Brother's Sing On. I heard the piece for the first time tonight, actually, but I never was worried because I have that kind of trust in Charles and saw the confidence the men had in him. "God Be In My Head" was terrific and I was the weakest link. Congratulations, men, for an outstanding performance.
2. Women's Choir: all three pieces went extremely well. Processional worked very well, way to go on the solos, girls. On Examine Me, The B-choir (formerly the "ah" choir) did their best job yet with the sustained notes. The women on the words held pitch extremely well; it was our best performance of that piece that we've done. Way to go. The last work was very different from the previous two--a great contrasting piece. You sounded like WOMEN and Sarah did a terrific job.
3. Concert Choir: Way to go. Nunc, except for the solid "K" on the very first sound, was outstanding. ('fess up--who thought we were starting with Kyrie?) I heard sustained applause for the first piece--it is a superb opener. Kyrie went well. The Bach piece had two issues and TEMPO was one. I was afraid that piece was going to run away but we held it together. Second sopranos gave me a scare near the beginning but recovered nicely.
4. Chamber Choir: very good singing. I didn't get to prepare you well prior to the concert; I'll try to do a better job of that next time. Great job to Jackie on "David" and hat's off to Maggie for "There Will Never." That piece was really kicking at the end.
5. Deep River--very fine but we can do that piece better. Lauren was wonderful. Once again, I didn't go over Joshua and I don't deserve for that piece to go as well as it goes without any rehearsal. That says alot for our quality work on it back in August, eh?
Overall thought: Great Success. Dividing the concert choir into different choirs had some bumps along the way, but we pulled it off. We'll do things a little differently next time and do even better. Way to go singers. Thank you to the seniors and other leaders. A special thanks to Charles and Ms. Dale Reynolds and my great friend Dr. Denise Gainey.
I'm a lucky man.
2 comments:
BRAVO Choirs!
I think you have raised the bar on yourselves! You were just outstanding! That Bach piece WAS hard and I don't think I breathed until it was over! How do you do that?! Sing your own part with so many other parts going on around you? And you look good too! What pretty people you are!
Thank you for a very special evening! More applause!
I'm still kicking myself for not coming in on the Bach... I almost did... "almost" being the key word there. Yeah, sorry. =/ My bad.
Otherwise, that concert was a blast! Being on stage is fun... and, everyone I talked to from the audience really enjoyed it. Even my kid brother only seemed semi-bored.
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