St. Cecilia II Part 4 -- Concert
Concert was long, so I don’t want to talk about each group.
The highlight for me was Proxecto Brisa do Mar’s performance of the Cantiga’s D’Amigo. In particular I liked the last three pieces. They were creepy and awesome and sad and made me feel like I was in another place and time. Now I kind of want to perform that set one day. Maybe when we have more instruments. Like a Hurdy Gurdy...
I was happy with the Cynnabar Singers’ performance. That was about the best we’ve ever performed those pieces. I’m happy with how On Parole / A Paris / Frese Nouvelle has grown on the group. When first did it people were like “What is this thing?! I don’t get it! ZOMG French” and now it’s fun. :D My project of developing peoples taste for decidedly Medieval music continues successfully... The Isaac was not bad. We’ve only been working on it for like a month. Fi Maris and and the Mashup were great. Weelkes’ The Nightingale was well received and IIRC was together the whole time. The altos even did Cuckoo motions!
Kasha’s set went really well. We did Belle Bonne Sage and didn’t mess up the road map. We even included the suggestion from the master class! Go us! Chanterai made people cry. I forgot to pick up the frame drum after my recorder solo, but that didn’t mess things up. I heard people particularly liked aelkiss’s accompaniment style on the guitar, which I have some slightly mixed feelings about because it’s decidedly not period. Nor are the improvised harmonies. But they sound good! And are accessible! So vaguely mixed feelings are very vague. Also I’d been worried that the song was too long. It has five verses, it’s pretty slow. I think it could have used more varied accompaniment. We’ll play with the arrangement before our Pennsic Concert for sure, but I’m happy that this audience didn’t think it was over long.
Kasha, aelkiss, Gyuri, and Rob did Nuper Rosarum Flores. It was good from where I was. Gyuri danced in the back during one of the dancy sections. Kasha was not-amused afterward--she could only tell he was doing something from the reactions on the audience’s faces--but I think it helped. If Chanterai was accessible, Nuper Rosarum Flores was decidedly not. Awesome, yes. Easy on the ear? Well it was better than the Perotin last year! (Did I mention I have no sense of fear?) So seeing Gyuri rocking out in the back, I think, conveyed that this music is cool and fun. :) I’m glad he didn’t beat-box like he did in rehearsal...
Psallite came on again at the end with the whole group, and the set was not-terrible. Hosanna to the Son of David was the best it’s ever been. All the others we’ve sung better before. (Partcularly during our warm up in the echoey stairwell. *Sigh* Why can’t we have had the performance there?????!!!!) I think the order we picked was great. Putting Nuper on its own was a good choice. For the second set we did: Byrd’s Haec Dies, Weelkes’ Hosanna to the Son of David, Josquin’s Praeter Rerum Seriem, and ended with Monteverdi’s Piagn’e Sospira.
The Byrd is hard for me because I start it. If I do it well the rest will be great. If I do it poorly it can be hard to recover from. I think it went alright? Regardless I love this piece so much. And the final Alleluja is so good.
As I mentioned, Hosanna was the best it’s ever been.
The Josquin got off to a bit of a shaky start, but we recovered. I like this piece because I got to be a soaring soprano on it and because, of course, it sounds so neat! The whole time I felt like I was running out of air, though, which is frustrating. I also felt like I was either overpowering everyone or not singing loud enough. Grawr. I think it was alright, though. We ended well. I even got some of the notes that I’d had a hard time finding in the ensemble. Also really, we probably should not have performed this piece. The original voice was men on the bottom five parts and boys on the top part. Poor Kasha and Simcha. :( Why is there so much music not intended for lots of women to sing???
In the Monteverdi, I didn’t feel like I was quite together with everyone. Frustrating thing is frustrating. But we certainly ended well. When people talked to us about Psallite’s set the one they were most impressed with was the Monteverdi. Chromaticism ftw! I’m SO happy we got to perform it. (I’m tearing up right now thinking about it.) I’d tried to have the group do it in its previous incarnation, but it was clearly too challenging for that group. And this time we did it fairly competently. My parents came to the performance, and my Mom really enjoyed the Monteverdi. It is so good and so creepy.
Over all, I’m content with how my sets went.
One of the things we did this year was have program notes for our pieces. I wrote up all of the ones for Cyngabar’s set. Kasha did the ones for her pieces and Psallite’s pieces. Also the program notes had texts and translations for the foreign language pieces. We didn’t do texts for the English pieces because then it would have been crazy long. The program was already 6 pieces of paper double sided! We got positive comments about having the program notes. Particularly, again, for the Monteverdi. People loved knowing to listen for the haunting sound of it. It was work to write those up, but it was good, appreciated work. And it took the event up one more level. :D Maybe next year more groups will give detailed notes. I think Briso do Mar’s set would have benefited by notes even though they had the morning class on the set.
This year we sang in the sanctuary. Last year the church didn’t let us use it because Sacred Things should be Sacred. Totally understandable. But this year the Pastor let us use the sanctuary because she likes us and likes our music. :D After having sung there though, I’m not sure how I feel about it. In theory it should have better acoustics, but the room is very warm, especially with an audience of 40 - 50 people. The fans had to be on, which meant music was not stable and it was harder to hear each other. Honestly I think singing in the basement might have been better.
The nice thing about having it in the sanctuary was that it meant my volunteers could clean up and set up for the evening activities without disturbing the concert. So... yeah. Next year’s planning team will have to discuss where the concert should be.
Another thing I mentioned was that the concert was long. One set in particular I should have requested be shorter. We are likely to get more people who want to perform. I want to be able to say yes. At the same time I want there to be a space for Projects. So that means two concerts. Somehow.