YES! Schola is Meeting Tonight! 😍

First, a few words about tonight…

We have two additional projects between now and the rest of the semester. The BENT BUT NOT BROKEN concert is a week from Saturday. Here’s the entire playlist for that gig:

• Quiet Revolutionary (Powell) – We have a pretty good hand on 2 of the 3 movements
• In Times of Silver Rain (Dilworth) – We’ve got this!
• When Storms Arise (Dilworth) – We read it once. It’s fancy “Amazing Grace.”
• Didn’t it Rain (Dilworth) – Don’t think we’ve cracked the cover of this one!
• Clap Praise (White-Clayton) – I know we haven’t cracked the cover on this one!
• John 3:16 (Boykin) – Also an easy read, and we’ve read it twice.
• Seeking Light (Williams) – This was terrific on Sunday!

We’ll hit everything we don’t quite know yet tonight. Remember, we do this set with several other choirs, though I suspect we’ll have spent more time with the music than most of those other choirs.

The December 1st concert will be with piano and strings at Grace Church. At the moment, the rep for that program looks like this:

• Splendor (Hagenberg) – This is set!
• The Dream (Forrest) – So it this.
• Dreamweaver (Gjeilo) – Well, at least you know the fast movement. 🙂
• The Dreams that Remain (Lavoy) – First movement is an easy read. We’ll add that tonight.
• To Sit and Dream (Powell) – Also gorgeous last Sunday
• Vita Nuova (Hudson) – Shelving this again. We could have done it without BBNB
• Nox (Hagenberg) – Many of you still know this from last year
• My Soul, A Vibrant Harp (Mealor) – same

So tonight will be an effort to get through everything in the folder at least once so you know what’s in store for the next five weeks. (I know, the calendar makes it looks like six weeks, but the university is closed for the entire week of Thanksgiving.)

And… A few words about last Sunday.

BRAVO! BRAVO!! “clap-clap-clap!”

I hope you enjoyed the acoustics and ambiance of the church, along with sharing stage with two of the other choirs from UD. It was super important to me that they were there to be on stage with you and to see first hand that singing is a lifelong pursuit.

There were more people up and out to their scores on Sunday than I can recall in a long time, which made a tremendous difference in the choir’s ability to engage the audience. Following Resound was, indeed, a challenge, but I felt you really stepped up to it. And… you’ve already conquered the most challenging pieces for the December concert so those should feel really confident once we come back to them with orchestra.

HERE’S A LINK TO THE UNEDITED RECORDINGS FOR YOUR LISTENING PLEASURE!

(And I think you’ll be pleased. 🙂 )

I am reminded, once again, of the podcast about the choir from Washington state that was the subject of early research on COVID. One of the singers said something to the effect of, “I don’t want to just chat with choir members on ZOOM, I want to harmonize and make music with those friends. That’s what we’re all about.”

Nowhere is the strength of community and music more apparent than on Tuesday nights when we come together to make great music. I am deeply indebted to each and every one of you for that.

See you tonight.

pdh