Good morning!
Tomorrow is the day! Here’s a bunch of stuff you need to know for this weekend.
SCHEDULE
Saturday, September 12
10:00 am – 1:00 pm: Rehearsal #1 in AED 118
1:00 pm – 2:00 pm: LUNCH on your own. (Plan ahead)
2:00 pm – 4:00 pm : Rehearsal #2 in AED 1118
4:00 pm – 5:00 pm: Change into outfits – Photo Shoot for PR materials
5:00 pm: Find your way to PDH’s house: 102 Lewisville Road, Lincoln University, PA 19352
6:00 pm ->>> Make new friends at the DCS BBQ!
Sunday, September 13
1:00 pm – 5:00 pm: Rehearsal in AED 118
Hopefully, we get some decent recordings out of this session.
Logistics for newbies
- Parking on campus is tricky. You’ll either need to park in the CFA garage across from the Amy E Dupont Music Bldg (AED) or on the street nearby. Either one will require you pay to park. Sorry.
- For the BBQ, navigate to 102 Lewisville Road, drive up the driveway (keep right,) go through the gate and pass the woodpile, then park in the backyard. No worries about driving on the grass.
- For the BBQ, we’re supplying burgers, sausages, veggie-burgers, sodas, etc. YOU CAN SIGN UP HERE TO BRING A SALAD OR DESSERT! (Please!)
- The BBQ is BYOB for those over 21. (I’ll have a limited supply of beer and wine on hand) Please note that we live 10 miles out on a country road (Rt 896) and the state troopers LOVE to troll that road for easy prey on a Saturday night. I’ve been pulled over twice on the way home from work. Each time, they were actually checking to see if I had been drinking. (I had not!)
- UD CHORALE VETERANS will recall that we have a huge yard and a friendly dog. Feel free to bring blankets, bug spray, frisbees and similar “toys,” and maybe a warm jacket in case the rain holds off and we can have a campfire. (Somebody needs to sign up for marshmallows!) Alumni should also know that we did a huge reno on our house. It’s blue now! Not white. Just so you know you’re in the right place when you drive in.
- AED 118 is the choir room, downstairs in the Amy E Dupont Music Bldg. Thankfully, they seem to have regulated the temperature for this fall, though you may still want to bring a sweater in case the room gets chilly during rehearsal.
- DON’T FORGET TO BRING PERFORMANCE ATTIRE FOR THE PHOTOSHOOT ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON. More about that below.
PHOTO SHOOT
The deadline for submitting an updated photo for ACDA publications is in early October, so this is our only chance to get a reasonably recent pic of the current DCS roster. Unfortunately, this is also the weekend when we have more people missing than any other weekend throughout the year, but it’s the best we can do on a tight timeline.
You should either be wearing the DCS gown and scarf, or a black jacket, pants, shirt, and DCS blue tie. (See photo at the top of this post.) If you are missing any of those items, please reach out to Amy ASAP (amyander@udel.edu) and she’ll do what she can to help.
The photo shoot will be in the last hour of the Saturday rehearsal block. You’ll have time to change at 4:00 pm before we go to the location on center campus.
REPERTOIRE
I’m hoping you’ve already downloaded all the scores and you’ve been listening to the YouTube playlists.
There are essentially six programs;
- ACDA (25 minutes)
- Aarhus Concert (40 minutes) – All the ACDA stuff plus a few extra crowd pleasers, including Puer Natus.
- WCG Chamber Choir (max: 20 minutes)
- WCG Sacred a cappella (max: 20 minutes)
- WCG Sacred accompanied (max: 20 minutes)
- WCG Contemporary (max: 20 minutes)
Again, for this weekend, everyone will read/rehearse everything, including WCG repertoire! There’s a chance we may amend the ACDA/Aarhus rep list, and once again, should we need to adjust the WCG roster, you are all “on call” for that. I’m hoping you will simply enjoy reading through some of these amazing pieces.
PLEASE NOTE: We’ve replaced the perusal score of Ack, ack om det vore dag in WCG Chamber Choir, and added the Hildegard excerpt to the ACDA folder. (Thank you, Nick GC, for that quick edition of Hildy’s piece.)
Below is a list of scores that I have deemed CRAZY HARD DIFFICULT to sight-read. Please find a moment between now and 10:00 am tomorrow to at least look at the score and give them a listen.
- Steven: Dendang Alam (ACDA)
- Esmail: The Love of Thousands (ACDA)
- Mthembu: Such a Time as This (ACDA)
- Miškinis: Dum medium (WCG Contemporary)
- Vulc: Sine Sole (WCG Contemporary)
- Brinsmead: God’s Grandeur (WCG Sacred)
- Antognini: Jubilate Deo WCG (Sacred)
- Martinaitis: Alleluia (WCG Chamber)
- Wycoff: Radiance Untethered (WCG Chamber)
For those who are trying to figure out why there is music with instruments in the Sacred A Cappella set, and visa versa, I’ll explain the WCG rules and regulations tomorrow. And for that matter, you will notice that some sets have five or six scores. Some of those are alternate scores depending on how this weekend’s rehearsals go. I’ll make final programming decisions after I’ve heard the choir.
THOUGHTS FROM PDH
Amidst the chaos and noise of trying to survive the media circus of 2026, I often turn to the “opinion pages” of the New York Times. I’m a big fan of both Toms, (Friedman and Edsall,) as they each offer a somewhat objective view of how we fit into the global scheme of things, reminding me that the human race is an inherently chaotic phenomenon.
Strangely, that’s reassuring.
A very different piece dropped down the other day by an author in Connecticut named Rachel Feintzeig. She recently paid big bucks to take her family to Noah Kahan concert. The gist of her essay was that in the age of uncertainty, we would do well to spend our discretionary income (and energy) on “things that make us feel alive!” Especially when you can do that with other people who are feeling alive!
She writes…
“It feels good to have good things happen, but it feels better when they’re happening to you and other people at the same time… A communications professor I once interviewed called the phenomenon “collective effervescence.” When you’re surrounded by people experiencing the exact same emotion as you, he said, the feeling multiplies, refracts, comes back to you heightened.”
While I don’t anticipate that Noah Kahan will pop into our rehearsal this weekend, I couldn’t help place her commentary in the beloved space of AED 118. In this case, I find it particularly moving that we have so many UD CHORALE alumni involved in this project, (28, to be exact!) spanning a period of over 20 years of musical endeavors that all began in this same space.
You can only imagine the immense pride and deep sense of joy I take from having so many talented and dedicated singers in the room at the same time. (Including current students and Honorary Blue Hens who have joined our ranks for various DCS projects over the years.) I am keenly aware, more now than ever, of the unique circumstances that have led to the formation of this particular choir. We are so very fortunate to have this opportunity to make music together.
But I’ll say it again…
The conductor of the choir is the only person on the stage who never actually phonates!
It is the prowess, resilience, and commitment of the singers that make for an outstanding choral ensemble.
Add to that a room full of people who are yearning for a strong dose of collective effervescence, and you have some pretty crazy magic on your hands.
There is some really difficult music in this folder.
And especially this weekend, I am well aware that I’m asking some of you to rehearse music that you may never sing in performance. To that end, I believe this is where we all double down on the mantra that the crazy magic, more often than not, happens in places like AED 118, often when we least expect it.
I, for one, live for collective effervescence, with huge anticipation of realizing the unexpected. I can hardly wait to hear what that sounds like over the next 72 hours.
pdh
Those dang cops!!! 😜