Sing We A Song That Takes But A Minute

The Madrigals had our first "official" performance last night, with the whole group at Mary Baldwin's Fall Concert. Those of us who have been in Madrigals for a little while tend to forget that the Fall Concert is never very good, because it's always a very new group, with repertoire we've only had for a little while. As one of this year's directors, I have a tendency to panic as soon as something goes wrong.

Honestly, it was NOT the worst we've ever done. I've heard us do way worse, in fact. We sang six songs, which is twice as many as was in the Charm set (to be fair, each of their songs equals about two of ours in length), and we didn't do too awfully badly. Once again, we tend to forget that this particular concert is never our best. We first sang "Cantate Domino", a Latin piece that we absolutely blew the audience away with. It's the best we've ever performed it. "Esto le Digo" our Spanish piece, was slightly less shiny. We started on a weird rhythm, which threw us off a little (not as much as it could have, this is one of the pieces we knew best), but I ended up going sharp on my solo at the end.

This kind of threw us for a loop on our next piece, which we are absolutely not confident on, "Song of Praise", which is our Hebrew (yes, Hebrew) piece. It's a cool song, and it's written by one of our favorite composers, Elanor Daley, but it's absolutely kicking my ass. We always end up flat, and since Katie was sick last night, she couldn't sing soprano 1. And, as much as I love my other sop. 1, Anna, I couldn't hear her at all and so I felt like I was singing by myself. Bad feelings on that one, really.

Next on the program was "Sing Me to Heaven", which is usually good. I stress "usually". The problem with this was that I was personally shook up from "Song of Praise" and completely forgot everything I was supposed to sing on "Sing Me to Heaven". When I first learned the piece, we sang it in the Concert Choir and I was on the sop. 2 part - very different from sop. 1. If Katie had been singing, my frequent unconscious lapses into the sop. 2 part would not have been too noticeable, but unfortunately this was not the case.

After that was "Now The Winter", which is one of two of my favorite pieces of rep this semester. It's in a minor key and the lyrics detail the fading of autumn and coming of winter. "Weeping now the autumn visage/eyes of bronze now dim and cold/ flinging down its golden foliage/Once so colorful and bold" is how it begins and the rest of the song follows along the same vein. The bridge is just gorgeous "Death of blade and frozen night/End of amber glowing leaves/Covered now in winter white/Autumn goes to bed and grieves". When we practiced it right before the program, it was awe-inspiring. However, it wasn't so striking during the actual concert. Not our worst, but could have been better.

The last piece on our program was my first "official" bit of conducting. "The Minute Madrigal". The premise of a song is a typical madrigal piece in four-part harmony with fa-la-la's, but the lyrics start to change to things like "We're tired of singing this song we admit it" and it gradually speeds up from the regular tempo at the beginning so that we're racing through and complete the song in one minute. It's a funny little piece and I enjoy it, which is why I wanted to direct it. This is the first time I've ever really directed, though, and I only just learned how to do it correctly. So, being a little nervous about it, I started the song faster than usual (about the tempo we're at when we end the piece). To me, however, it sounded a little slow. So I sped it up. I think we ended up actually finishing the song in thirty seconds. (I really should have had someone time it.) However, it did turn out well, the audience liked it, and it was a good end to our little program.

Today we're doing a benefit concert with Charm (the other a cappella group at Baldwin) and I'm a little nervous about it. Advertising didn't start until much later than it should have and we really needed to push getting people involved. So, it being all rainy and everything, I'm nervous about having an audience. However, I'm sure we'll be fine. Our next singing event is next Saturday, and I'm excited about this one. The Downtown Development Association always has a Christmas celebration downtown, and this is the second year they've asked Madrigals to sing. Last year, we all dressed in Madrigals garb throughout the ages (Renaissance through early Victorian) and walked around downtown singing. It was SO much fun. Katie dressed as a guy last year, so we walked around with me in my green Empire-waist Jane Austen-esque gown and Katie in her bright red pumpkin pants and doublet arm in arm - we even have a picture of the happy "couple" walking down the street.

Sorry for the "music-ey" post. I promise substance and a deep introspective next time!