October 3 updated, including rain dress

As a reminder, we will meet this Saturday, October 3 VERY PROMPTLY at 1pm in Heineman. We will be joined by OVER 50 other choirsters. Our rehearsal (starting promptly at 1pm) will end at 1:30, after which we'll walk over to the Green.

Our performance on the Green will begin roughly at 2pm, following the Governor's citation. We will be singing in a covered area.

DRESS: Neither you nor I should have to ruin our concert clothes for this event. Therefore the dress will be rain gear. I personally will be wearing jeans & boots (think of mud) along with a raincoat. Bring an umbrella!

Click here for a map of where we'll be on the Green.

Solo opportunities

In addition to the possibility of some of the carols being sung solo (these will be handed out on 10/6), the Messe has a number of solo/duo/trio opportunities. These are as follows:

• Gloria mm.48-83 (sung as SAB or TTB or STB)
• Gloria mm.115-138 (SS or S-highA)
• Credo mm.134-155 (SSB or SAB or TTB or STB)
• Credo mm.213-243 (SSA or S-high A-A)
• Credo mm.263-272 (ATB or AAB)

We can also do these with two on a part.

If interested in solos, please look these over. I'll be scheduling soloist auditions very soon.

agenda for 9/29

We continue to read through all of the music for the winter program. We're getting there!

Here's the plan:

7-7:10 warmup
10-25 Credo pp.1-2
25-35 Credo pp. 3-4
35-55 Credo pp. 4-top of 5
55-8:05 Credo p.5
5-12 BREAK (whew!)
12-20 Battle Hymn
20-35 Kyrie #2
35-9pm read all of In dulci jubilo

October 3

As you should know, Saturday, October 3 is our combined chorus outing to the Framingham Green. Since we have some new members, I'll talk about this Tuesday night. 

Our rehearsal that day with our combined choruses (Framingham HS & Greater Framingham Community Church) will be at 1pm SHARP in Heineman. We'll walk over to the Green at 1:30. 

Click here for a map of where we'll be on the Green.

Dress for the event will be all-black with your black binder. The music is the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

rehearsal agenda for 9/22

Nice work last night. That was quite fun!

As a reminder, the Civil War event on the Green is on Saturday, October 3. We'll meet in Heineman at 1pm (sharp!) for a quick rehearsal with the other choirs, and then we'll walk to the Green for a 2pm performance. This will easily be done by 2:30. (I'm told we're done by 2:15.)

Here's the plan for Tuesday:
7-7:10 warmup
10-20 Battle Hymn
20-35 read v. 2 of In dulci jubilo, then try all of it
35-45 Christe (middle of Kyrie)
45-8pm Gloria, first 3 pages
8-10 BREAK
10-20 Gloria, mm.74-110
20-45 we'll get through as much of the Credo as we can
45-9pm Sanctus

Welcome to Fall 2015!

Greetings! This is the blog for all things FSU Chorus. The right column includes links for the calendar, practice tools, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Please look here weekly (or, why not?, add your email address to the blog (right column)) for what we'll be doing each week.

For Sept. 15, we'll continue reading the music for the semester. This will include:

• Sanctus
• Credo
• Gloria
• Kyrie
• Wachet auf

I'm not sure we'll get through everything, but we'll try. See you Tuesday!

aftermath

All semester, I've had trouble sleeping on Tuesday nights due to those choruses running through my head. Last night was no exception. I hope that you've had the same wonderful affliction!

Just as the post-concert buzz makes us all quite unable to congratulation each other and, in some cases, say farewell properly, there is nothing that I can write to adequately express my gratitude and admiration for the dedication you gave to this production. It has been a really good semester--indeed my favorite since starting at FSU in 2007.

It's going to be some time before we top what we achieved last night. I know that expectations are high for what's next, but we must always keep in perspective that building a chorus is an annual, if not per-semester, project.

My thoughts for fall 2015 were to shift gears and do a lighter program, namely "A Beatles Christmas." The program would feature some a cappella arrangements of classic Beatles songs, coupled with English Renaissance Christmas music, ending, of course, with McCartney's Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time.

However, when I presented this idea to several of you last night, I saw wrinkled noses! (In 2008, a similar program was a very big deal on campus, and we grew the choir significantly because of it. But times change!)

That all said, I invite you to complete a short survey about repertoire for the fall. Please add your voice! Click here to complete the survey.

Meanwhile, best wishes to you all for a great summer and, especially, to our graduating class. You will be missed, but there will always be a place for you in the FSU Chorus!

-Paul