Only managed 20 minutes of Loserville last night before I had to RUN out the door to choir. But it was long enough to see ANDREW voted off the Island and put his fire OUT. He is clearly the WEAKEST LINK and the TRIBE has spoken. Loudly! So that means at this very moment he is back in Hervey Bay training his little HEART OUT.
On the choir front, we leave on Friday to go to the Queensland Eisteddfod at Kawana. So to borrow a term from TBL, this was LAST CHANCE CHOIR PRACTICE. Luckily we didn’t have to crawl under any cargo nets or carry big ropes. I did however manage to step ankle deep into a puddle on arrival. Luckily I had worn my old shoes because it was raining. I’m hoping they are dry this morning.
We did a bit of a post Sunday concert post mortem (is that too many “posts”?). Fields of Gold is fine and very lovely. So too are the madrigals. I think these are our strength. As our wonderful conductor keeps telling us madrigals are meant to be sung with only 1-2 voices per part. This is where we, as a smaller choir (about 40) have an edge over the uber-choirs from Ipswich and Toowoomba who can have anything from 70-90 singers. To quote Kath and Kim, they’re YUGE. (My goodness I’ve developed a bad writing tic with these BL capitals). Anyway, I think we’re doing a great job with our ballett – Sing we and chant it, and the set piece, Amaryllis fair as lillies. The first is suitably buoyant and light (fa la la la la la) and the second mournful and heartsick. The pieces for the Sacred section are going well also. Throw Open your shutters is a joyful Christmas ditty with the effect of bells throughout and lots of fun. And the contrasting slow piece – a spiritual style Hear my prayer is very very beautiful. The pieces for the chief choral are coming along. Our own choice, Jubilant song is a great contemporary piece for choir set to words by Walt Whitman with lots of changing time signatures and syncopation. The set piece is suitably dull and old-school, but we are doing an nice enough job on this. Words by Coleridge Taylor and music by some woman from the 40s who has never been heard from again. It’s the ladies’ pieces that have been the most difficult. The Blue Bird by Charles Villiers Stanford is a killer. Five parts, deathly slow, dissonance everywhere, with lots of sustain required. Needless to say we did not choose it, it’s the set piece. It has improved out of sight in the last two weeks but we could probably do with about three more rehearsals to be really excellent. Still, we won’t embarrass ourselves. And it will be so interesting to hear how the other groups have interpreted it. And the own choice is a cute thing by Mendelsohn “Night Ride of Elves”. It’s all very Midsummer Night’s Dream, but not that easy either. They both went unexpectedly well on Sunday so that’s a good sign. Oh and finally the small vocal ensemble, in which I sing alto. It’s a six part arrangement of the spiritual Were You There and so so lovely to sing in. I just love it.