Easter Message

Yesterday was Easter, a time of new beginnings, whether you associate it with the risen Christ or just with the Goddess Estra and her sacred rabbit. And for Christians, Easter is a season not a day (which means we can sing Easter music for several weeks) so I might as well take advantage of it.

First I want to say that I feel bad about my previous post, in that it is not usually in my nature to disparage other performing artists (unless they're famous - then I suppose it's fair game). I was even thinking of editing out some of the remarks I made in my last post on the other hand that was how I was feeling at the moment.

The issue with Good Friday wasn't how well any particular person sang or didn't. The issue was that the situation was not handled fairly. It was handled as if this other group provided the professional singers and we provided the choir, which didn't even do as much singing as we normally do on Good Friday. In two pieces were were just backup to soloists, which is not normally what our choir director likes, in fact I learned at a lecture about Lutherans and church music recently that they believe the "communal voice" is more important than the individual voice, which is why choral music usually trumps solos and hymns sung by everyone trump choir anthems. (For example my singing soul mate - another woman who began serious study of classical singing in late middle age - sings in an Episcopal church and if she has a good solo at the ready it will be substituted for a hymn slot, something that we would never do.) So the format of this Good Friday service flew in the face of that precept and for what?? OK, that other choir is paid and we are not, but - and this is what prompted me to get snarky - we have several professional sounding singers, myself included, certainly in that range, who sound as good as they do so how dare people assume that it's ok to treat them like the stars and us like the background? They didn't even give us a chance to either 1. audition for some of the solos that they wanted to include or 2. offer to come to extra rehearsals so that we could sing some of the contemporary music (which was intertwined with the Bach) either as a choir or as a solo quartet?

In any event, I just have to let this go. I am not angry because I was aware of another singer's flaws. Goodness knows I have plenty of my own. I am partly angry at myself because I think I could be a paid church singer if I weren't too lazy to learn how to sightread or read key signatures.

I don't even think there's any point in saying anything to the choir director. He is very sweet and has been very supportive of me (and everyone). If I feel underappreciated I can cut back on some of my involvement there and try to audition for some paying gigs at least on the big holidays.

I need to ratchet up my work on my oratorio solos, as well as my opera repertoire. I will never be competitive in the latter because I am too old and probably don't have the stamina to sing the roles that my voice is most suited to (I would have if I had begun doing serious work on them even in my early 40s) but I can still sing arias and scenes in concert or even throw together something like I did with Samson et Dalila.

I am looking at the alto solo from the Bach Easter Oratorio. It's sung by Mary Magdalene, which of course is right up my alley because she's part of my "brand" along with Dalila, and it's magnificent. We would have to make cuts in it, of course, so I might pass on it for now but it's a good thing to learn. In the summer there's more leeway but I couldn't sing this in the summer because it specifically refers to the Magdalen at Christ's tomb - it's not just a jolly Easter piece like "Rejoice Greatly".

I also had bought another book of oratorio arias and found something by Saint Saens called "Thou O Lord Art my Protector" which I will look at and there's also the song about Jesus at Emmaus called "And Their Eyes Were Opened" by Charls Raymond Cronham.

So my project for today is, after I log in enough work hours, to review all three of these pieces. I can put the Verdi Requiem aside briefly, then once I have an Easter solo spot I can go back to it until it's time to think about a summer anthem. I really would like to do "Qui Sedes" with an oboe.

In other news, yesterday I managed to sing through the entire soprano part of the Halleluia Chorus twice. The second time I didn't make it up to the A on "He shall reign" (actually all I sang was "ah" on all the high parts) but I feel I have mastered some of the skills required, which was a good thing, as I was alone on the part with the two First Sopranos - the two other Second Sopranos decided to sing alto.