A Happy Day

Yesterday I had the first really happy day I have had in a long time, certainly since Palm Sunday, when my partner came to church, because it is her favorite holiday.  Maybe April is the cruelest month.  Anyhow, it started off well and ended well and next March I will have my Verdi Requiem to sing so it won't matter who gets chosen to do what during Holy Week.  I will just be my professional self and do what I'm told.

Yesterday I got up at six so that I could sing Dvorak's "God is My Shepherd" in the 9 am service.  I also sang it at the 11 am service.  At the 9 am service there were no choir people (usually they have someone doing cantoring) so I was on my own with the hymns and liturgy, more or less, at least in the front rows.  I don't sightread, but my "phonographic" memory served me well enough as all the pieces of music were things I had sung at least once over the past two years.  (And if it's an unfamiliar hymn, if the choir director plays a verse on the organ as an intro, I can plunge right in.)

I think the song went well and actually I sang it better in the second service after I had gotten warmed up (I mean this literally - it was very cold in the church so I was happier in the second service wearing a choir robe).

I also got compliments on my CD, not just from nonsingers, but from a woman in the choir who went to a conservatory and had been a paid church singer in a number of places.

After that I met my partner at Christie's to see their Impressionist collection.  (We were going to go to Sotheby's to see Munch's "The Scream" but worried it might be a zoo.)

So now I am going to buckle down and get serious about learning every part of the Requiem.


I know my experience singing it will never be this (some people would rather be in the chorus of a professional production than sing the solo bits in a pastiche type situation but I would not) but it will be something and it will be a special addition to the church's Lent programs. And after that - maybe some Shakespeare!