As all of you know, who read my blog, I sing. I sing in two quartets, and I sing in my church choir. Every year our choir, as a gift to the community, sings a Christmas cantata. This is done on a Sunday evening, with a full orchestra. Our choir is approximately 40 voices strong. Everyone who hears us, especially members of our Methodist Conference, marvel not only at our sound, but at the number of men in our choir. I guess most choirs are usually "men short."
Anyway, I digress, we have been practicing said cantata for about 2 months. It has been rugged. The music is very melodic, but hard. Since I have a hearing problem, it has been especially challenging. We have hit sections that seemingly are almost impossible to get through. Enough so that our director called a special rehearsal on Sunday morning and again another hour last night. We were to meet with the orchestra last night for the first time. So we all arrived an hour earlier to rehash some parts. I could tell how frustrated our director was, but she is one of the kindest, most considerate people I know, and would just shake her head, and nicely explain that we weren't making music, just singing the notes,(and some of them still weren't correct.) But we persevered until the orchestra arrived.
After intros were made, Ms Director told the orchestra to be prepared to stop often, and "warned" the choir that we may be stopped often. The orchestral prelude began. The choir stood, and began singing. I think we stopped three times during the whole thing. I could feel the stress leaving Ms D's body from 15 feet away. Even the rough places were made straight. If one was of the mind, you could actually feel the presence of God, there in our sanctuary.
This is not to say that we did it perfect, no way. But, after much practice, and lots of prayer, we became a cohesive group of singers. Voices blended, notes were sung, and hearts were really into the message we were preparing to present to the community. Folks, it was glorious! We will be presenting our cantata, "Winter's Grace," on this coming Sunday night. I can hardly wait!
Peace,
JE
2 comments:
I've sung in many, many Christmas concerts over my lifetime. When the chorus comes together and it all finally falls in place, it can be so wonderful! After all, most Christmas compositions have joy and celebration as the main theme! Once you get the notes and timing right, it's impossible not to feel great when you sing the songs!
I miss it!!
I know it will be beautiful
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