The Babe and I have been in rehearsals with the church’s Chamber Singers for the annual Renaissance Christmas Concert and lo! it came off well. The group has been practicing music in German, French, Latin, and even a couple songs in English since September. We were originally slated to do one concert on Satuday, December 10th, but the tickets sold out in two days, so we scheduled a second concert for Sunday the 11th. 300 tickets got sold – not too shabby!
We’d had rehearsals Friday evening and that morning with the musicians (Byrdsong Early Music Consort), so by Saturday evening, we were ready to go. Everyone showed up at 7:00pm, an hour before the concert, to warm up.
We did just enough work to check our blocking and volume and so on. People were trickling in so we stopped at 7:30 and milled about a bit.
The choir has had the privilege of performing with Byrdsong before. They’re all multi-talented: they play viol (aka viola da gamba), recorders, harpsichord, and several other instruments. Some of them are excellent singers, too.
Brice, the sackbut player, isn’t normally a part of Byrdsong, but we had the pleasure of his company for these concerts.
All of this has been under the guidance of Tom Sears, the best church choir director we’ve ever run into.
The ladies kicked off the first vocal number and it was smooth sailing throughout.
After the show, there was a crowd that headed for the goodie tables. A number of choir members and others had brought all sorts of baked goodies (I was able to show off my chocolate dipped biscotti to an admiring throng, too!). There were a lot of goodies; so many so that we all took some home after the second concert Sunday afternoon.
It was a lot of work but it was definitely worth it. The concert was taped by one of the other basses, so I’m hoping to create MP3s of the concert and post them online. (Watch this space for details.)
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