Don't Mourn - Organize! (2)

Well, let's say I am feeling a little better about the choir situation.

First of all, the choir director is a truly sweet person.  I actually don't think he has any idea how put out I am over the lack of available solos (as part of choral pieces) for mezzos (or heavier voiced sopranos, or altos).  Now I am not sure whether this is an artefact of the pieces he chooses, or whether this is true of choral pieces in general.  Most great works (Bach, Mozart) have solos for four voice parts, although the Brahms Requiem does not.

In any event, the first thing I did was speak to the pastor who handles the Spanish services and ask if there was a Spanish service on Good Friday.  He said yes, there is one.  So I offered to sing "Qui Sedes", which he said he thought would be good (most of the people who attend those services were raised as Catholics and are used to hearing Latin) but that I would have to ask the person who plays for the service.  So I have emailed him.  Than I asked the choir director about that piece (I also had "Fac ut Portem" at the ready).  The choir director said in fact the only day he had free was the 17th, which is "El Salvador Sunday" (that's something specific to this church, which has a sister church in El Salvador) so he said the "Qui Sedes" might be ok but that it would be better to sing an anthem in Spanish.  I said the only Spanish sacred songs I currently had were for Christmas so he said he would try to find me something.  Then he asked was this ok if I was busy with the Verdi and I said yes, because an anthem for communion would only be 3 or 4 pages.

He said he would let me know by Wednesday.  I also told him I might sing in the Spanish Good Friday service but that "if he needed me" to "help out with the alto chorus part" in the Brahms of course I would.  If I get the spot in the Spanish service I will flog it to people I know who are involved with Spanish speaking communities.  They are not Lutheran but they might want to come as would people who speak Spanish and might want to hear me.

Among the soloists who sang today was a young woman (she is only 20!) who is a conservatory student.  She sang a solo from the Bernstein Mass and what can I say?  Every note was perfect. How does one achieve that?  Even after all these years, in addition to my entrenched problems with range, nothing sounds perfect.  Beautiful sometimes (if I stay in the middle of my range), exciting, often, but totally polished?  No.  I think it's the difference between a voice that was built (like the voices of conservatory students who began singing as teenagers) and a voice that has been massaged, which is how I would describe mine.  Even the first time I studied seriously, I was already 26, a former smoker and drinker, a New Yorker with a loud abrasive speaking voice, someone who had "fooled around" singing things like "Condotta" in my early 20s....   I mean I have come a very very very long way since then. I have even come a very long way since that Valentine's Day, but it is not enough.  My range has not expanded, but the notes that I do have sound better.  I no longer have a break above middle C, I can sing Gs, A flats, even the occasional A natural softly, and have phenomenal breath control singing Bach.  The sides of my neck no longer get tired.  I don't conk out at the end of a 90 minute choir rehearsal.  But I still don't have that much confidence.  I don't have even the equivalent of a "semester" of performance classes behind me.  The things like that that I went to intimidated me and anyhow, particularly with my partner's declining health, it is not something I can justify doing.  I still have yet to pick up the solfege book, and have not studied languages beyond looking in a German or Spanish dictionary to translate what I am singing.  And forget a "fitness routine"!!!  How would I possibly squeeze it in?  I am lucky if I can squeeze in enough hours doing my work for pay and then practicing.

I really really really want to make this Requiem a success.  I have drilled and drilled and drilled all the ensemble pieces and I have worked on "Liber Scriptus" and done everything I can think of not to blow that top note.  I would say I have about a 98% success rate with it. But it wouldn't hurt to keep praying.