The entire chorus will not be involved -- just a subset of us. The list came out yesterday, and I'm part of the smaller ensemble, indicating that Bob thinks my voice is agile enough for the piece. I'm pleased about that. Before I moved here, my Connecticut chorus and orchestra performed it frequently and I've only sung it once in the 29 years since. We got a nice review when we last did it here in Cincinnati, just 4 or 5 years ago:
“The Messiah is apparently this ensemble's calling card and one admired its razor-sharp diction, crisp rhythms, and dead-on intonation throughout. It was a splendid night!” Musical America on the May Festival Chorus.
We'll do the entire piece twice, but the third performance will be a shortened version for an afternoon concert.
It's appropriate this year, as it's the 250th anniversary of Handel's death. When David and I were in London, we were at Westminster Abbey, Handel's resting place, a week after the anniversary date had passed. His home in Germany had honored him with flowers lying on his tomb, still fresh.
As an aside - when Handel died, he wanted a small private service, but over 3,000 people arrived to mourn his passing.
What is scary is that there are rumors that these performances are the beginning of an "annual tradition" for the symphony. Please, no. As much as I love singing this oratorio, doing it every year is a bit much. Oh, well. I plan on singing only two more seasons after this year (my plan is 30 years and out, and this is #28), so someone else will have to keep on singing it.
In other choral developments, I've built a web site for all the rehearsal materials I create for the chorus. This year, the plan is to put the rehearsal tracks on the web so that people can download them. This frees up a lot of time for our chorus administrator, who has to burn over a 1,000 CDs a season. However, the technical support people at Music Hall are overwhelmed with work, and the non-technical chorus administrator doesn't have the skills or the time to maintain a website and all the links required. I got tired of waiting for the tech guy to give me a quick lesson on Dreamweaver and access to the May Festival's web site, so last week I bought a domain and paid for hosting for the next three years.
So all our administrator has to do is put one link on our private chorus pages, and they'll be taken directly to the hidden home page of my site (hidden because our May Festival repertoire is still a deep dark secret and we don't want just anyone seeing what we're doing). So far, I've posted some 300+ MP3 versions of all the tracks for the rest of the symphony season -- all the movements of Messiah and Carmina Burana - repertoire for the rest of the symphony season, which has been announced. There are five of each track - one each with soprano, alto, tenor, and bass parts emphasized and one that has all parts with equal emphasis. For Carmina there are also tracks by a diction coach.
I've got a lot more to post sitting here on my desk, and I'm working on digitizing another major work, so it's a big project. But the site has been built and is easily expanded by just creating a page for each work as I complete the digitizing. It's more work for me than formerly, but it will save the festival some money and give our administrator back a lot of time -- and the singers can burn their own CDs (except for the 10 or so who seem proud to tell us that they can't figure out how to use mainstream technology and want someone to do it for them). Luddites. Boo.
Next season, I'm going to suggest that we coddle them no more. I have built a help screen to end all help screens for these people. If they can find a computer with a CD burner installed, they can do it with the information and tools I have given them. I've talked with other chorus people who were frightened at the prospect of CD burning, but have figured it out, using my step-by-step instructions, and were successful -- within a couple of days of getting access to the web site.
I have no patience with those who can't be bothered to try.
godaddy.com loves me these days.. This site was the third I've bought in a month (and this one had hosting). I also bought domain names for my old blog, www.greaterdowntownmeridian.com (which will have the more public entries, focusing on politics and the arts) , and for the one I'm just starting, this one, (which is more about personal experiences), both of which are hosted by google's blogger.
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