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EAR #39 Dear choral colleagues, We are all well into the 2022-2023 season, and I hope you have had a good start to the concert year. As mentioned in a recent EAR newsletter, we compiled the last 10 years of concerts on our website, and I hope you had an opportunity to peruse the archive. #connect is a choir for emerging singers from the greater Edmonton region, with singers coming as far as Calgary. While the expectation is not that participants are studying musical subjects in particular, the space is intended to give young singers an idea of the environment of a professional choir. This means for example that the hours allocated to prepare a concert is similar to that of the main choir. And these hours are scheduled in two main blocks, requiring that singers do a thorough review in between rehearsal blocks. There are also no sectionals, or time dedicated to learn individual lines and parts in the rehearsal, the work is always with and for the entire ensemble. The singers have to work with a tuning fork, and there is no piano to accompany and provide support. Andrew Whiteside, choral conducting student at UofA, is conducting one of the works, and the works will be introduced by the singers themselves. I have chosen a selection of music that centres around War and Peace, that covers several centuries and styles, that is in different languages (English, Latin, French, German) and that uses body percussion in some instances. It is fascinating to hear from the singers as to which work they like best, now in rehearsal, and eventually in performance. While I have some assumptions what type of repertoire might appeal to a ‘youth’ choir, - and those works are on top of the list of many, - there are also surprises, such as Rudolf Mauersberger’s motet ‘Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst’ (how deserted lies the city). The concert A Thought of War is livestreamed like all of our subscription concerts, providing these young singers with the same experience as our main choir Pro Coro. I hope you can tune-in, or even come in-person to our concert on Sunday November 6. Don’t forget to also sign-up to our general newsletter.
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