I always enjoy reading blog posts made by singers after their concert experiences. This one was after Bach's Christmas Oratorio, from City of Dunedin Choir:
We sang the Bach Christmas Oratorio last night.According to the website, The City of Dunedin Choir is based in Dunedin, New Zealand and exists for people of all ages and from all walks of life who share a common delight in choral singing.
And we rocked.
Yay. I'll say it again. In red, just to prove a point: We rocked!
What a huge work. What an awesome concert. What an amazing choir. What fabulous soloists. What a terrific orchestra. What a wonderful conductor.
Wouldn't you love it if your singers were talking about your performance like that? She goes on to say what inspires her the most in a concert setting:
What did I enjoy most? Hard to say, really. I like the tricky stuff, but that's just me. I find the slower, grander stuff a bit on the dull side, and don't really enjoy it as much as the music that rocks along. So I guess I preferred the fast movements. I think the audience preferred them too.
If there was a weakness in the concert, it would be that I did feel that the choir as a whole didn't get 'into' the music as much as we could have. What I mean by that is that it didn't quite feel as though people around me were sensing the pulse and meter of the work as well as they might. Music isn't just about notes and precision - it's about recognising the underlying patterns and beats and feeling that.
When a piece of music gets into you, and you grab it, you really don't have to see the conductor's beat, because it's there inside you. What you watch for instead is interpretation, cut-offs and expression. It's the conductor's face and fingertips, not their arms, that matter, once the music 'clicks' and you get beyond the note-bashing stage. The little timepiece inside you gets going, and the conductor's beat moves in step with your own.
Read the whole post here.
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