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Hello, everyone,
We're reaching a turning point in our work now, as we grow closer to performance time. You might call the next two rehearsals "midterms" since we'll use them to clean up all the choruses. We should now be finding them familiar enough to look up far more, which will enable you to have cleaner passages and more obvious changes in mood and dynamics. Clean is our goal with Bach, with all those fantastic 16th-note runs, while mood and dynamics are much more the feature in the different choruses of Rutter's setting.
Both compositions' characteristic elements achieve their goal of expressive communication and emotional depth when every singer is on board. In short, if your eyes are down most of the time you're not really there! To paraphrase: the eyes have it! If you rely on listening to others in order to be together, our performance will certainly fall short of its potential.
This fact is even more crucial when you realize that we'll have only two rehearsals to settle into a completely different acoustical space. Things will sound very different to you, and we'll lose precious time if you're not in the habit of watching, to be with the baton. Bottom line: start getting out of your score now, to get into that habit. (Another benefit: you'll discover where you could use more personal practice!)
Here's my plan:
- 3/18 - Bach #7, #11, #12 & Rutter #5, #6, #7
- 3/25 - Bach #1, #4 & Rutter #1, #2, #3, #4
I'm toying with the idea of switching the order of compositions for these two weeks, to allow more energy in the first half of rehearsal.
See you soon, and try to stay warm!
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