I attended both of the Girl Choir concerts last Saturday, December 12th.  Both concerts were very fine. There weren't the spectacular highs in these performances as there were in the 2008 concerts, but the performances overall were on a higher plane.  I think that the choir directors and the muscial director of the Girl Choir were striving for a more consistently thematic performance.  They achieved it, in my opinion.

The theme of the concert was "To Music".  All of the songs expressed love of music and appreciation for what it brings to the performers as well as to the listeners.

I told the director of the Intermezzo Choir, Amber Evey Schmidt, that I thought that "How Can I Keep from Singing" was the "star" song of the concert.  For those familiar with the Lawrence Academy Girl Choir, you expect the choirs to ratchet up in quality as the girls get older -- especially by the performance of the oldest girls (9th through 12th grade) in Bel Canto.  But the Intermezzo girls, in 5th, 6th, and 7th grade, showed what the Girl Choir program can do for the confidence and abilities of even the younger singers.  They made a much bigger leap.  I would even go so far as to say that they were a hard act to follow. "How Can I Keep from Singing" was very challenging from the standpoint of the multiple part harmonies and the timing of the parts.  Bravo to all the girls in that choir and to Director Evey Schmidt for pulling it all together.

My daughter, Eleanor, is now in the Allegretto Choir.  My wife, Janet, was the accompanist for both the Allegretto and Intermezzo Choirs.  She also accompanied the combined choirs for the finale.  And she was the page-turner for the accompanist for the Primo Choir!

Here are the links to the 2:00 pm performance.  These are all Windows Media files, for those of you with Macs.

(Note on the recordings: I used my trusty Olympus DS-30 Digital Voice Recorder.  I placed it in the center of the apron of the stage; that is, on the floor, down stage center.  The Steinway concert grand was in front of the choir just to stage left of center.  You'll hear it in the right channel of the recordings.  Since the DS-30 is, technically, a "voice recorder", there is a certain amount of automatic recording level boosting and clipping.  That is, the full dynamic range of the performances is somewhat leveled off.  I think that it does a very nice job of recording music, but I hope to have a more "professional" recorder to use during the Spring concerts.  Let me know what you think of the recording quality.)

Primo Choir (3rd and 4th grade girls)

• Jubilate Deo
• Orpheus with His Lute
• The Artist Teaches Us All

Allegretto Choir (4th and 5th grade girls)

• An die Musik
• Art Thou Troubled?
• You Shall Have a Song

Musical reflection

• The Flower Duet

Intermezzo (5th, 6th, and 7th grade girls)

• Come Sing This Round with Me
• How Can I Keep from Singing?
• Sing With Pleasure

Musical reflection

• Age and Remembrance

Cantabile (7th, 8th, and 9th grade girls)

• Shepherd, Shepherd
• Wenn die Klänge nah'n und fliehen
• The Piper
• Rosa Amarela

Bel Canto (9th through 12th grade girls)

• Zvönche zhávoronka péñye
• Napadly písne
• Billy and Ming Do the Bebop Thing
• Thank You for the Music

Combined Choirs

• To Music

A note on the last selection: the three verses are sung

1. by the Primo and Allegretto Choirs (90 girls in all)
2. by the Intermezzo Choir (64 girls)
3. by the entire Girl Choir (270 girls)

6 comments so far...