Overheard at the choir party:
I don't know who comes up with all this stuff . . .
Ok, Mr. Desta.
To the UAB Concert Choir and Women's Chorale:
I thought May 6 would never come. Boarding an airplane for the first time that morning is an experience I will never forget. It was a tiny express jet that one had to duck to get into. Thankfully, I had many friends there with me who were very comforting.
After two planes and a bus, we finally arrived in New York City. That night after walking around Times Square and eating at TGI Friday's, I learned why the city is referred to as "The City that Never Sleeps." How could one sleep with all the honking and yelling in the street below?
Well, the day of our performance finally came. The most memorable moment for me occurred at dress rehearsal that afternoon. As you may recall, we were told no to stop to admire the room until we were in our places in order to avoid a "traffic jam." (Isn't that what New York is famous for?) I got to my place and looked up for the first time. What I felt inside at the moment surpasses all description. I believe it was a combination of wonder, joy, and excitement among other things. The concert hall was breathtaking; my dream had come true. That night, I sang with more energy, strength, and spirit than I have ever sung with before.
The adventure is now over, and I am back home. I am elated that I took so many pictures. Every now and again, I have to take them out to remind myself that it really happened. I was in New York City, and I did sing in Carnegie Hall.
Tell your friends. It's Tuesday, May 23rd from 7-9 p.m.
All who went on the trip . . .
Slightly updated.Tuesday, May 17 May 16
I'm headed back over to Paris on 5/25 and I'm busy figuring out what I need to pack. I'm also scoping out other necessary information.
There were so many great things about the trip to New York. One of the greatest was that my parents came with me. Although they've been incredible supporters throughout my life, they've never been on a trip like this with me. This was their first trip to NYC and they are planning on doing the Germany trip next year.
I sent a recording of Amazing Grace to the arranger of the work, Sheena Phillips. Here are her comments:
Guess what . . . .
Thanks to the people that were able to come tonight. It was a dreary night but you sang well--especially for such a poor acoustic!
Found these two links today, wanted to tell you about them.PEFORMANCE: Sunday night! REQUIRED
I received a phone call today from the meeting planner of Protective Life Insurance Company. The CEO of Protective Life, Mr. Johnny Johns, heard us sing at the Episcopal church on Sunday and wants us to sing a few numbers at his Board of Directors meeting this Sunday at the Mountain Brook Club. (directions below)
For our services, he is a making a very generous contribution towards our European Trip next summer. Isn't that incredibly nice?
The details:
Group: UAB Concert Choir
Event: Board Meeting, Protective Life Corporation
Date: Sunday, April 30th
Time: 7:00 p.m. gather (place to be assigned from MBC)
Perform: 7:15 p.m.
Place: Mountain Brook Club,
How to get to Mountain Brook Club.
So, friends, our last concert has not been sung . . . . yet.
Best wishes to Lauren and Luke, who submitted themselves and their futures to the MCAT
I follow New Yorker critic Alex Ross via bloglines and I invite you to become familiar with him.
Sometimes I pay attention to other types of music. Hard to believe?There's a valley of sorrow in my soul
Where every night I hear the thunder roll
Like the sound of a distant gun
Over all the damage I have done
And the shadows filling up this land
Are the ones I built with my own hand
There is no comfort from the cold
Of this valley of sorrow in my soul
There's a river of darkness in my blood
And through every vein I feel the flood
I can find no bridge for me to cross
No way to bring back what is lost
Into the night it soon will sweep
Down where all my grievances I keep
But it won't wash away the years
Or one single hard and bitter tear
And the rock of ages I have known
Is a weariness down in the bone
I use to ride it like a rolling stone
Now just carry it alone
There's a highway risin' from my dreams
Deep in the heart I know it gleams
For I have seen it stretching wide
Clear across to the other side
Beyond the river and the flood
And the valley where for so long I've stood
With the rock of ages in my bones
Someday I know it will lead me home
Found this today about the soprano singing with us in New York:A person’s twenties are about definition and getting Mr. Right to notice you while you prove to the world you can take care of yourself. At the beginning, though society allows you vote, you cannot drink and getting into forbidden places through ingenuity becomes sport.
Your twenties are about test driving your emotions, test driving men and defining self. The adjectives used to define Mr. Right at 20 generally include smart, tall, fun, handsome, ambitious, great car . . . At twenty, a year is a very long time and for most women, the person she is at 20 is drastically different the woman she becomes by 30.By thirty, Mr. Right grows up, puts on a few pounds and has better things to do with his time than drink beer, work out and live just for the moment. Now a woman you realize substance exceeds aesthetics . .
The new adjectives now reflect your own maturity and include more concrete ideals such as integrity, a passion for living, principles, goal-oriented, considerate and loving. By thirty, you realize it’s not whether he wants you, it’s whether you want him. At thirty you sometimes forget what year it is because time now goes by so fast.
This was my favorite TV Preacher in college. And for some reason, I think Clay will like this video.AUBURN - Thomas R. Smith says close to 2,500 Auburn University students have sung and played for him since he became Auburn's director of choral activities in the fall of 1972.
He has led hundreds of concerts and thousands more rehearsals as director of the Auburn University Concert Choir, a by-audition-only chorus of about 100 voices, and also of the University Singers, a show choir of 36 dancers and singers and nine instrumentalists.
But Smith, 62, is nearing his last rehearsal and last concert as Auburn's choral activities director.
He's retiring May 31. And some of his former students have organized an alumni concert and are asking former members of the Concert Choir and University Singers to gather in Auburn May 27-28 to rehearse and sing for Smith one last time.
"He has touched so many people's lives, and we just want him to leave with having this as a memory," said one of the organizers, Dale Farmer.
"He truly cares about people. He always strives for excellence in everything he does. I don't know of any other person, ever, in my experience that is loved as much as he is, and respected as much," said Farmer, 51, a flight attendant who is back at Auburn working on a doctorate in music education.
Smith, 62, said the heart attack he suffered last fall was a wake-up call, one that told him he needed less stress in his life, along with more exercise.
Smith has chaired Auburn's music department since 2000 and he said he's always put pressure on himself to get a performance ready and perfected.
"Having to measure up to your own expectation is a lot of pressure. And that part, I won't miss," Smith said. "I like when the perfection comes, and you can experience it, but I will not miss the pressure of having to get it to that point."
Smith said he's looking forward to spending more time while he's healthy with his wife, Gayle, and their adult son and daughter and 14-month-old granddaughter.
He plans to remain the choir director of Providence Baptist Church near Beauregard, a post he has held since 1974. And he's open to new musical challenges.
But Smith said that, just as most Concert Choir members never again sing with a group that good once they leave Auburn, he likely will never again direct such a quality choir, and he'll miss that.
He said some of his favorite memories with the Concert Choir include:
Singing at the National Cathedral in Washington in 1999.
Performing "Belshazzar's Feast," by English composer William Walton, with the Alabama Symphony in Birmingham in 1990.
Performing Giuseppe Verdi's "Requiem" with the Alabama Symphony in Birmingham in 1989.
Performing Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra in Columbus, Ga., in 1992.
The annual spring tours, on which the Concert Choir and University Singers fill three Trailways buses for three days of concerts at churches, schools and other places in Alabama and neighboring states.
Smith said about two-thirds of his singers over the years have been nonmusic majors. So why do they, and music majors, sing in choirs when they get to college?
Creating good music is one reason. But Smith said creating a sense of family is another.
"It provides them an opportunity of a place to belong, and they can combine their talents with all these other folks and produce something that's more powerful than any of them can do on their own," smith said.
"There are certain lessons that you learn through music that are going to be applicable to any field, wherever you are: The discipline that it takes, the application of oneself to a task, learning how to work with other people, coming together and putting all those different personalities into one group," Smith said.
"It's so important in singing in the choir that, in order for the music to be unified, the group has to have a sense of unity and oneness," he said.
More than anything, Smith said he's going to miss working with students, and ``the opportunity to relate to them, to be a mentor sometimes, sometimes to be a friend."
"Sometimes, you're a teacher. Sometimes, you're a golf buddy," Smith said. "There are just so many aspects of those things."
Hester Tippett Maginnis, 32, a homemaker from Helena, was in Auburn recently watching Smith conduct a Singers rehearsal once more, before he leaves.
"It saddens me," she said. "He's always just been a huge part of my life."
"I love music. And he was really a father figure, too. He had an open-door policy. Any time we felt had had trouble, we could go in and talk to him," said Maginnis, who sang in the Concert Choir and Singers in 1991-95.
Ken Thomas, 41, the choral music director at Auburn High School, also sang in both groups. He said Smith stands out because of his love for music, love for people and unselfish spirit.
"He has been a mentor, a friend, and of course, a teacher," Thomas said. "In working with my choirs, I always in the back of my mind think, 'How will Dr. Smith feel about what I'm about to present?' That's just how much he means to me, and to choral music in general."
Smith said he tried to lead by example, and by never asking someone to do something he wouldn't be willing to do, a practice he hopes his students will remember and follow.
"I'm just going to miss the relationship with the students. That is the No. 1 thing," Smith said. "And I'll miss the opportunity of making music with the Concert Choir and Singers."
"Both are totally different groups, but the choral quality, we've striven to make that the same for both," he said. "There's a high quality."
"It's been a joy," Smith said. Then he paused and continued, "It's been a joy. And I really am blessed to have had the opportunity to be in one place and do as much as I've been able to do over the years."
E-mail: dwhite@bhamnews.com
Here is a link.
It seems we are doing a good job recruiting singers from among our UAB ranks this year. At least five members of other ensembles in the music department have talked to me about joining Concert Choir next semester.1. Mary Hynes | |
She is the sky of the sun! |
It seems Mr. Mozart may not have been as poor as we once thought:The new documents, on display at Vienna's Musikverein, reveal that he earned about 10,000 florins a year — at least $42,000, in today's terms.
That would have placed him in the top 5 percent of wage-earners in late 18th-century Vienna, say experts, who were unable to prove lingering suspicions that gambling debts took a big bite out of Mozart's earnings.
"Mozart made a lot of money," said Otto Biba, director of Vienna's vast musical archives.
To put his earnings in perspective: Successful professionals lived comfortably on 450 florins a year, according to Biba, who said Mozart's main occupation in Vienna was teaching piano to aristocrats — a lucrative job that helped support his extravagant lifestyle.
Great discussion on the Mozart Solemn Vespers (k. 339) is here.The Vesperae Solennes de Confessore, K339 (Solemn Vespers for a Confessor) were written in 1780, the year after Mozart had reluctantly returned home to take up the role of court organist to Hieronymous Colloredo, the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg. It was not a happy time for Mozart. Now in his twenties, his days of instant recognition as a child-prodigy were over, and his last trip to Europe in search of wealthy patronage had proved fruitless. To make matters worse, his mother, who had travelled with him, had been taken ill and died in Paris, and Aloysia Weber, with whom he had fallen head over heels in love, had jilted him. Salzburg cramped his style; it was too provincial and there was no opera house. As if that wasn't enough, Archbishop Colloredo, sought to clip his wings and introduced liturgical reforms, forbidding the customary use of operatic conventions in church music, and demanding a much more direct and succinct mode of expression. It is all the more remarkable, then, that this period of discontentment for Mozart should be marked by an outpouring of such joyful masterpieces as the Coronation Mass and the two wonderful sets of Vespers, of which the The Vesperae Solennes de Confessore is the second and perhaps best known.
It won't be long now!
