Pops night concert
In the first few weeks of concert choir at Somerset Berkley Regional High School we recieved three pieces of music to begin to learn for the upcoming concert. The three pieces we are learning are Something Told the WIld Geese (a poem by Rachel Field put to music), The Water is Wide, and America, the Beautiful. Also in these weeks we were informed of the date of this years Music Town Ball, held at the Venus DeMilo, on October 6th.
Christmas Festival
This years Pop's night concert was a huge success, but there is no time to slow down and celebrate so we are pushing forward and have already received 3 pieces of music to begin to learn. The pieces Mr.Archello chose for this years Christmas concert are Winterlight, Where Are You Christmas?, and Once Upon a December. In Winterlight we focus mainly on when to use forte (be loud) and when to use piano (be soft). When you have four different parts it is hard to manipulate your voice in the correct way to emphasize one sections solo. When the sopranos have their solo, everyone else must lower their volume and vice versa. In Where Are You Christmas we focus on harmony and pitch control. Most of the song is in unison so we must be together and have very distinct parts. We have to work on pitch control because there are multiple rifts in the song which will sound awful if each pitch is not spot on. In Once Upon a December we just need to follow the conductors instructions and how he wants to shape the piece as we sing it. We also need to keep a steady tempo.
In School Concert & Yearbook pictures
Our next big event for concert choir is the in school concert. This concert is a big deal because it is one of the only concerts that the music group does while school is in session that all of the students can see. We will be singing 2-3 of the selections from our Vespers christmas concert. The pieces we have chosen are Where Are You Christmas? and Once Upon a December as definate choices and Winterlight is we have time. We chose Where Are You Christmas and Once Upon a December because they are both popular songs from movies that kids in our school will know and be able to relate to. Where Are You Christmas? is from the popular kids movie How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Once Upon a December is from the Disney hit Anastasia. We think the students will enjoy listening to these songs the most and will have a good time hearing what we have spent months putting together! Also, on the same day that we have the in school concert we will be taking the concert choir group yearbook picture. We all have to bring our concert dresses to school, change into them, and head down to the auditorium to see the photographer around 11 o'clock. Once we finally get everything perfect we will go back to the chorus room, have a pizza party, rehearse our songs, and then perform for the school!
New Music! (1.4.12)
This week in concert choir, Mr.Archello assigned us some of the music for our next concert! The first selection is Build Me Up Buttercup by Tony McCauley and Michael D'Abo. Everyone was very excited when they found out we were doing this song because it is a very popular song that many people in the audience of the concert will recognize. Also, it will be a pretty simple piece to learn, so we will be able to have fun with it and enjoy singing it. The second piece we are doing is Dirait-on by Rainer Maria Rilke and Morten Lauridsen. This piece is all in French. It's basic translation is:
"Wildness surrounding wildness,
Tenderness touching tenderness,
It is your own core that you ceaselessly caress,
.... as they say.
It is your own center that you caress,
Your own reflection gives you light.
And in this way, you show us how Narcissus is redeemed."
This selection will be very hard because we need to learn the correct pronunciation of all of the French words, and then put them in song. We will be meeting with the French Teacher, Mrs.Goncalves, to help better understand the meaning and pronunciation of the words we are singing. Next class we should be getting the other 3 songs in our repertoire and I will update this as soon as I am given them!
"Wildness surrounding wildness,
Tenderness touching tenderness,
It is your own core that you ceaselessly caress,
.... as they say.
It is your own center that you caress,
Your own reflection gives you light.
And in this way, you show us how Narcissus is redeemed."
This selection will be very hard because we need to learn the correct pronunciation of all of the French words, and then put them in song. We will be meeting with the French Teacher, Mrs.Goncalves, to help better understand the meaning and pronunciation of the words we are singing. Next class we should be getting the other 3 songs in our repertoire and I will update this as soon as I am given them!
New Music (1.18.12)
In concert choir we have recieved another new piece of music to add to our repertoire called the Skye Boat Song. This song is a traditional sailor shanty. It is a difficult piece for the alto group because the music as a lot of leaps in it instead of just steps. It will be a high note, in unison with the sopranos at one moment, and down very low to a harmony with the sopranos in the next. Once we practice this piece more I think it will sound fantastic and be a nice additon to our concert.
New Music (2.8.12)
In concert choir we just recieved our 4th song to learn for the concert. It is called Come, Sing a Joyful Song. It is an early baroque piece from the renissance era. This is a pretty easy piece that does not have that many words. The first part of the song is in unison and then we go into simple parts. The alto part is not really much different from the piece we sing in unison. The thing that makes this song interesting is the dynamics. This song has very exaggerated, terrace dynamics. It will be forte (singing very loud and forcefully) at one point, and then it will switch to piano (very quite but with much intensity) at the next verse. This is an interesting song that will be a nice inclusion to our concert. We still have one song left to learn, though we do not know what it is yet.
New Music!
In concert choir we recieved our fifth piece for the spring concert, When You Believe. When You Believe is a song from the popular Disney movie The Prince of Egypt. This is challenging because it is in 4 part harmony and we have to sing in Hebrew. It is difficult to speak another language, nevermind sing it. We also only have a few weeks to learn this along with perfecting the other 4, which is not a lot of time considering the difficulty of each piece we have recieved. I linked a youtube video below of the song in The Prince of Egypt.
Final Concert
For our final chorus concert of the year we preformed When You Believe, Dirait-On, Come Sing A Joyful Song, Skye Boat Song, and Build Me Up Buttercup. This was the seniors last concert in Somerset High and to honor them we had a senior slide show at the end of the concert. I think overall the concert went well, we should have sped up a bit for When You Believe and we messed up a bit on Build Me Up Buttercup but nothing serious that the audience would have even noticed.
http://www.somersetmusic.org/
Musicals
Our last project was to watch and analyze different musicals. We watched the Sound of Music, Hairspray, and Mamma Mia and discussed (somewhat) what made them enjoyable and if the cast fit the role. For the most part this was just an excuse to watch movies at the end of the year, we basically just watched the movies and got to sing along.