My choir rehearsals don't begin until September, but we've entered the season of paying dues and announcing what we will be singing. We're doing a cantata series! Plus one big concert to celebrate Benjamen Britten's 100th Birthday (not on the website yet ( Read more... )

The Bach went beautifully, but it was very tiring - I think our attention span was definitely flagging in the last hour after standing through a lot of solo material, because our conductor had to prod people to watch. But we perked up again for the end, and people clapped, and came to the reception and ate the food we'd brought, and said they'd ( Read more... )

I survived the two straight nights of rehearsals, which weren't as draining as they could have been. The first one was sans orchestra, and we were up in the choir room, which has wood rather than stone floors. We could also occasionally sit. And we got out after a couple of hours, and I got to bed at a reasonable hour ( Read more... )

I went to the first concert of this year's Bach Festival yesterday - our conductor did a solo organ concert, improvising in the style of Buxtehude, improvising on some Bach chorales, and finishing off with a piece written by Bach. There was a quartet to do the chants and chorales he was working from, and some of our choir scattered throughout the ( Read more... )

I was asked to write about my experience of the Philadelphia Orchestra's production of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, which I saw and heard on Saturday night. For those keeping track, the participants were the Philadelphia Orchestra; Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor; The American Boychoir; and The Westminster Symphonic Choir (from Westminster Choir ( Read more... )

EASTER MESSIAH BROADCASTS of HANDEL'S MESSIAH, performed live in Philadelphia, March 17, 2013

Choral Arts Philadelphia in collaboration with Tempesta di Mare, the Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra

Ah Young Hong, soprano
Jennifer Lane, alto
Aaron Sheehan, tenor
William Sharp, bass

Good Friday, MARCH 29 @ 8 PM
WKYL and weku.fmEaster Sunday, MARCH ( Read more... )

1. I went back to the gym last night, after a week of mostly being off for concert week rehearsals. I lifted many weights. I found that it still drives me into a rage when all the equipment is in use, and if some people (almost always men, in the weight room) are loitering on it rather than giving others a turn. By "loitering" I mean leaving their ( Read more... )

It was an excellent performance of "The Messiah," I think. It's supposed to be on the radio on Easter Sunday, but I don't have details yet.

There's some video on Tempesta di Mare's Facebook page from rehearsals, i.e., How I Spent My Saturday.

We're starting rehearsals for Bach's B Minor Mass on Tuesday night. That performance is May 5.

On the second night of "Messiah" rehearsal, we sang "Worthy is the Lamb," which includes the big "Amen" fugue. Whee! It was still as much fun as I remembered. Then we learned that two of the choruses we had been told were cut were now back in, so we did those, and reviewed some of what we'd done the first week ( Read more... )

In the last couple of weeks I've started trying this thing where you work on the most complicated "to do" item first ( Read more... )