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Still alive.
Mama's been fairly miserable since the five-day started. Erp.
Mama's been fairly miserable since the five-day started. Erp.
There, she's done checking mail and stuff.
We had another typical day today, warmups at 8:30 and then big group piece (Mendelssohn Jauchzet, very simple but very Romantic, for Mendelssohn), then groupifying to learn music. Mama was divided into a different group from me, this time, and she is really unhappy about it, because they basically comparatively suck, but they won't let her move because it's already set and parts divided and stuff. So she just leaves their limping, beating-dead-horses Bonneresque rehearsals and listens to something else. I'm still in the top group, with Kristina directing this time, and so far we're doing fairly cool music. Robert Dennis's "L'homme arme'" is really really cool, and they sang it at the opening concert so we have somehting to live up to. The bigger group (not a small groupwithinagroup like for L'homme) is doing an absolutely stunning Brahms motet, Ich Aber bin e... something. Unhappy. Very angsty in that especially elegant Brahmsian way.
After lunch we rehearsed some more, and in separate groups from the assigned ones for Yumiko's jazz stuff (she's not a member of WW, but very associated, she arranges half their jazz stuff). Roger, Debbie, Mama, a tenor named Robert Puleo (SPECTACULAR), and a baritone kid whose name I forget are doing an arrangement of Dream A Little Dream, and it would be gorgeous if Debbie could find her notes that are a major second away from mine.
I skipped the jazz improv class (not very advanced; sit in a circle and imitate noises in the beginning, much lower a level than we did with Avalon) to sit in the auditorium and read, but I ended up talking to Alan, and then he and Bill convinced me to come with them to buy "milk" (there's no alcohol officially allowed in the Smith dorms, but the housekeepers look the other way for this workshop and we call it all milk cause wine and beer are four-letter words) down the block cause they needed help carrying it and the recyclable bottles. I got to smash glass! In a machine, admittedly, but still. I never knew recycling was so much fun.
This evening was also a seminar in which each group presented some amount of music for the faculty to comment upon. Our group, as they tell us is the curse of advanced musicianship, is always last... once we got going, though... The Brahms in a place like that with a four-second reverb... not a bad hall, not at all. And though we were only going to do the first half of L'homme anyway, we trainwrecked twice in the same place and eventually decided to stop there and get our feedback. But man, Alan (baritone) is so completely resonant on those A's in the beginning... it's like somebody's put a microphone on a really bright but really mellow and pleasant French horn. I talked to him about wishing to be a bass, and for once he understands in an enthuiastically sympathetic way. He's fairly cool. You would all like him. And yes, Tony, the guys in the top ensemble are pretty much tremendous, though I could do without this one male alto... a girl could do better.
I talked to the instrumental faculty, Grant and Bob, and Grant says he could probably adapt Alaiah for theorbo if I add some harmony and make it a duet (they've had problems before with too many acts so they won't allow solos). That would be just as cool, cause a theorbo is basically an extended lute. Roger calls it a bazooka.
All in all, aside from trying to keep my mother from breaking down into utter (however justified) petulance, it's been nice. Haven't been swimming again yet, since there's been no free time; barely even made it back from the milk trip in time to scarf five minutes of dinner before rehearsal for the seminar.
But still. It'd be more fun if I had you people here, singers or not.
We had another typical day today, warmups at 8:30 and then big group piece (Mendelssohn Jauchzet, very simple but very Romantic, for Mendelssohn), then groupifying to learn music. Mama was divided into a different group from me, this time, and she is really unhappy about it, because they basically comparatively suck, but they won't let her move because it's already set and parts divided and stuff. So she just leaves their limping, beating-dead-horses Bonneresque rehearsals and listens to something else. I'm still in the top group, with Kristina directing this time, and so far we're doing fairly cool music. Robert Dennis's "L'homme arme'" is really really cool, and they sang it at the opening concert so we have somehting to live up to. The bigger group (not a small groupwithinagroup like for L'homme) is doing an absolutely stunning Brahms motet, Ich Aber bin e... something. Unhappy. Very angsty in that especially elegant Brahmsian way.
After lunch we rehearsed some more, and in separate groups from the assigned ones for Yumiko's jazz stuff (she's not a member of WW, but very associated, she arranges half their jazz stuff). Roger, Debbie, Mama, a tenor named Robert Puleo (SPECTACULAR), and a baritone kid whose name I forget are doing an arrangement of Dream A Little Dream, and it would be gorgeous if Debbie could find her notes that are a major second away from mine.
I skipped the jazz improv class (not very advanced; sit in a circle and imitate noises in the beginning, much lower a level than we did with Avalon) to sit in the auditorium and read, but I ended up talking to Alan, and then he and Bill convinced me to come with them to buy "milk" (there's no alcohol officially allowed in the Smith dorms, but the housekeepers look the other way for this workshop and we call it all milk cause wine and beer are four-letter words) down the block cause they needed help carrying it and the recyclable bottles. I got to smash glass! In a machine, admittedly, but still. I never knew recycling was so much fun.
This evening was also a seminar in which each group presented some amount of music for the faculty to comment upon. Our group, as they tell us is the curse of advanced musicianship, is always last... once we got going, though... The Brahms in a place like that with a four-second reverb... not a bad hall, not at all. And though we were only going to do the first half of L'homme anyway, we trainwrecked twice in the same place and eventually decided to stop there and get our feedback. But man, Alan (baritone) is so completely resonant on those A's in the beginning... it's like somebody's put a microphone on a really bright but really mellow and pleasant French horn. I talked to him about wishing to be a bass, and for once he understands in an enthuiastically sympathetic way. He's fairly cool. You would all like him. And yes, Tony, the guys in the top ensemble are pretty much tremendous, though I could do without this one male alto... a girl could do better.
I talked to the instrumental faculty, Grant and Bob, and Grant says he could probably adapt Alaiah for theorbo if I add some harmony and make it a duet (they've had problems before with too many acts so they won't allow solos). That would be just as cool, cause a theorbo is basically an extended lute. Roger calls it a bazooka.
All in all, aside from trying to keep my mother from breaking down into utter (however justified) petulance, it's been nice. Haven't been swimming again yet, since there's been no free time; barely even made it back from the milk trip in time to scarf five minutes of dinner before rehearsal for the seminar.
But still. It'd be more fun if I had you people here, singers or not.
.