This past Wednesday, December 14th was the last choral concert of the fall semester. I participated in this concert as part of the Women’s Chorus, but due to our spot on the program (after intermission), I took the opportunity to watch the first half of the show.
The repertoire was almost all Baroque/sacred music, and I’m sorry to say that the selection of music disappointed me a bit. Yet again, I am not the biggest fan of Baroque music or the mind-numbingly repetitive “agnus dei, gloria in excelsis deo” Latin stuff either, so I don’t know if I have the authority to say that the lineup wasn’t impressive. Whether I liked the music or not, though, I can’t deny that the concert was an excellent display of the marvelous vocal abilities of the students and adults who are part of this school.
The vocal ensemble is a perfect example. They performed every other act, alternating between the instrumental Baroque ensemble. The harmonies were beautiful and lush, which is extremely hard to do considering that much of the music was a cappella. I did particularly like a funeral piece that the group performed, which had very sentimental lyrics. They also performed the music with a lot of passion and feeling- even if it was repetitive Latin blessings, they sang the music as if it was the most personal work.
I also was looking forward to hearing the Concerto for Recorder- as someone who has played the recorder since the third grade (and succeeded in getting very good at it), I couldn’t wait to hear it performed on a collegiate level. I soon remembered why I stopped playing, however. Though the piece was very technically difficult, the sound of the recorder quickly got annoying and began to resemble the sound of a pan flute- I learned that night that I can only handle a little bit of recorder- not a full concerto’s worth.
The Women’s Chorus definitely added a fun, modern touch to the concert. We did perform a couple of Baroque pieces: “Gloria” and “Lauda Jerusalem”, which utilized a group of string players, but my favorites to perform had to have been our modern pieces, the gospel song “Music Down In My Soul” in particular. Performing that song and getting the whole audience to clap along was wonderfully fulfilling. Hearing them giggle along to our Portuguese folk song “Rosa Amarela” was also fun too 🙂 Overall, I’d say we ended the semester on a wonderful note! (get it?)
