Acacia Quien, Alto

I was already a huge Beatles fan by age eleven, so when PME did a rendition of “A Day in the Life” in 1994, the choir earned major cool points in my mind. See, I have been attending the Jazz & Pop concerts since I was a little girl. My father discovered PME in the late 80s, and every year since then and until I left for college, my parents & I have been going to this consistently enjoyable spring show.

When I auditioned for PME at the dawn of the J&P season, I recognized at least half of the choir immediately. I could put names to the faces of the repeat arrangers and soloists, so to me it felt like these folks were either quasi-celebrities or adults from my childhood whom I already knew but who didn’t recognize me yet. Crazy, I know. I half expected Jim Hale or Kathy Longinotti to approach me and ask if I was indeed that scrawny girl in the audience every year in the 80s and 90s, all grown up. Yeah, that never happened.

From the first rehearsal I knew that this choir was no joke. These guys were serious about music, and they were good! Coming from the band world—a nebulous world of dimly lit, noisy bars, smoky casinos, and cocky horn players (singing along side 10 horn players can often feel like a competition), this was a new awakening. No one taking cigarette breaks? No musicians jiving each other, or the singer? No glasses breaking or obnoxious drunks? I knew that my ten year hiatus from choirs was officially over. I had finally found my musical happy home!

I also realized that my choir game was a bit down after all these years, and I needed to stand next to certain people (Polly, Kim–yeah ladies!) to get my sight reading and harmonic mojo back. PME moves fast, and, unlike the choir directors of my youth, Lynne Morrow doesn’t take time out of rehearsal to teach sections their respective parts. We are expected to know our stuff upon arrival, which means a combination of great sight reading skills and a bit of homework. I was officially in the land of real adults and it was intimidating.

However, I had never met a more friendly and supportive group of musical people in my life. Really! PME is unusual in its lack of snake-pit vibe that I’ve seen in other musical groups—the environment is so positive and encouraging, it’s extraordinary. The Pajaro retreat was awesome (see Kate’s blog), and I really dug that such hard work was accompanied by an abundance of quality food and drink. Great singers are great eaters, that’s for sure.

We finished our final concert on Sunday.  I was unfortunate enough to acquire a nasty cold for the first show, so although I sounded a bit like Janis Joplin after a doing some damage to a fifth of whiskey, I rose to the occasion as best I could and made it through without passing out. The versatility in the musical selection and styles of arrangement is amazing—each song is unique and beautiful in its own way. Because there is such a collective support system for risk taking, I am already considering arranging my own tunes for next season.

So I’m finally old (and mature) enough to be singing with my choir idols, and it feels fabulous! I have a feeling that I will be a PEEMER for a very long time, and I hope to see more young adults hope on the bandwagon and join this talented, disciplined choir full of awesome, supportive folk. So where my young choir dorks at?

Acacia Quien
Alto

It was so worth it! Pacific Mozart Ensemble should feel proud and humble. Yesterday we accomplished a very rewarding and equally challenging concert program. It was the final concert of “The Little Match Girl”. I took today off because I am so exhausted. Granted, I have extenuating circumstances that made my weekend even more tiring, but this concert was just plain demanding.

The program was well thought out, with intelligent and beautiful music. It featured compositions about women, one a pulitzer prize winner, and also some young composers. It was refreshing to be singing about women and feminine energy during the holiday season, when choral concerts are usually exclusively oriented towards Christmas. It is especially gratifying to perform the work of someone who is developing as a composer. There is a special responsibility to deliver the piece in a way that he or she can experience the realization of their ideas in a live situation. I can only imagine how that informs their process.

Especially gorgeous was Michael Roberts’ “Cast Thy Bread Upon the Waters”. It was my favorite, for personal reasons. It explored the same space as Match Girl, where pain and joy merge, in a musical vocabulary that is perhaps more accessible. Michael was there, and I hope he was pleased. When he stood up to be acknowldged, I felt so humbled to think that he had etrusted us with his music.

Actually, it is hard to say that any one piece was more beautiful than another. They were all wonderful. I had friends in the audience who said that every piece was great. I was surprised that the carols we sang with the audience at the end were what had me crying. Watching the joy in the audience as all 200 people joined us was overwhelming. Also I think I was working too hard to feel much emotion until then.

I wonder if the audience knows that the conductor and singers have their attention on dozens of technical details at every moment to create an experience for them. I stand in the back row, where it is difficult to hear much more than the people on either side of me, so I don’t get the experience of hearing the ensemble the way they do. Also, I am listening specifically for mistakes in the alto section, so we can fix them. The altos had three extra sectional rehearsals to prepare for the concert, which is perhaps a record for us. Modern music is often deceptive. Transitions from one section to the next are unexpected. Tempos change often. Voices alternate between leading and background in unusual and dramatic ways. Tuning can be challenging, as are tone clusters. And then there is just learning the piece, spending whatever time you personally need to be able to stand in the group and hold your own.

David Lang’s “Little Match Girl” is a special challenge with its polyrhythmic and range challenges and the pristine silences. You don’t want to “step in the hole” as we say, that is to sing into a silence, and this piece is built around the silences. It is like racing your bicycle along a street that is filled with potholes and rocks. You might avoid the big potholes but the little rock at the edge of the road makes you wobble or even crash. If you do, you must get right back on the bike and back into the peleton. Not quite, but you get the picture.

The honor of performing David Lang’s “Little Match Girl” was one that no one took lightly. This piece won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for music, an honor shared by the likes of Aaron Copland, Virgil Thompson, Gian-Carlo Menotti, Ornette Coleman and Wynton Marsalis. We gave its West Coast premiere. Talk about pressure. It was gratifying that KQED’s Cy Musiker gave the concert a plug. Those who were there were so lucky. Lang’s piece gave them a unique experience. Everyone I spoke to indicated in words or just with gestures that “Match Girl” opened a wide, wide space in their heart. Often they didn’t have words for what it did, always the best response, if you ask me.

I have been wondering how many man-hours this concert took to produce. This is off the cuff but for me it was perhaps 28 hours of regular and dress rehearsal and 6 hours of sectional rehearsal. Another 20 hours of personal practice, say 6 hours preparing for sectional responsibilities, 3 hours talking with others about our process, 12 hours travel time, 2 hours communicating about the concert with potential audience and dealing with my friends” ticket concerns, 2 hours shopping for ways to better organize my music, 10 hours on the two concert days. I can safely say that I spent the equivalent of two work weeks. Please don’t imgine that I am complaining. Doing this is my great joy. However, multiply that by 50 and add the work of our conductor, administrator, board members, marketer, webmaster, program creator, sound and lighting technicians, hosts, stage manager, volunteer coordinator and volunteers who man the door and sell the albums,… I am sure that I am forgetting plenty of folks…it is an impressive commitment of time all spent to give our audience a brief experience that will move their soul and hopefully open their heart. I am convinced that humans need music and story as much as we need food and shelter.

So today I am a dishrag. The last two weeks I felt tight with worry, lost sleep, and fretted over not finding enough time to squeeze in extra practice so I could NAIL every moment. Was it worth it? You bet!

-Peggy Rock, Alto Section Leader

Technorati : Dave Brubeck, David Lang, Little Matchgirl Passion

The Monk Ensemble did some workshopping in Dartington, England, and Minneapolis. Minnesota, while Hamilton developed the visuals. PME began receiving scores from Meredith’s music director, Alisson Sniffin, during the summer, and we continued to get updates and new sections right up to the week before the premiere.

On Thursday we went to Stanford’s Memorial Auditorium for the first rehearsal where we met the creators. Many of us know Meredith from other performances we have done with her, including our unforgettable Carnegie Hall experience in 2005. Some of the same singers from Carnegie Hall are still in the Monk Ensemble, so this was a kind of reunion for us. There were also six instrumentalists in this production: a percussionist, a wind player, and a string quartet.

We had three rehearsals with the entire company, during which the sound system and lighting had to be worked out for the space in Memorial Auditorium. Since the choral segments are a small part of the 70 minute piece, we heard much of the music for the first time at these rehearsals, but we never heard or saw the entire piece until the performance itself.

We spent most of the performance sitting in the balcony, singing occasionally and otherwise simply being part of the audience. I personally found this a unique way to be exposed to a new work of music theatre. The teasing hints of string quartet, saxophone, percussion, dance, lights, etc., from the rehearsals blossomed into a rich, delicate texture of sound and ritual. It is the most beautiful writing I have heard from Monk, especially the string quartet and vocal ensemble music.

I can’t wait to experience it in the Tower next week.

Photos by Maria Mikheyenko, for more pics from this event follow this link:
Stanford Meredith Monk Oct 08

-Jim Hale

Technorati : Ann Hamilton, Meredith Monk, Oliver Ranch, Songs of Ascension

Seargent Pepper at the City Club
June 15, 2008

Way Down in the Hole at the City Club
June 15, 2008

Tour de France at the Green Room
June 14, 2008

Look out for more as I dig through the archive footage.
-erawk

Technorati : A Cappella, Beatles, Kraftwerk, Tom Waits

October
Performances with Meredith Monk and her ensemble. The piece is Songs of Ascension. The stairs on a pyramid, the vaulted ceilings of a cathedral, the pilgrimage up a mountainside are all inspirations for this compelling new piece.

One performance will be at Stanford and the other set of benefit performances will be site-specific, at Ann Hamilton’s Tower on the beautiful Oliver Ranch in Geyserville! One of the rehearsals will be recorded for a commercial film!

For more photos of the tower, follow this link: Tower at Oliver Ranch

December
We will be collaborating again with the Grammy-nominated Quartet San Francisco on works of Dave Brubeck. We will sing the entire triptych, Canticles, along with several other Brubeck choral works including 2 with texts by Harlem Renaissance poet, Langston Hughes.

January
We will record a CD of the Brubeck works.

March
We will produce our annual fundraiser in a new venue, with a new format. This is your opportunity to present a solo based on a theme (to be announced).

June
Our brilliant Annual Jazz and Pop concert set, 3 performances of the best singing anywhere! Intriguing arrangements, amazing voices.

These are the events on our calendar. As you know, recently we’ve had some great opportunities that pop up during the season. Perhaps something life-changing will appear!

In any case, we have a fulfilling season ahead of us.

I look forward to seeing you soon!
Lynne

Technorati : Dave Brubeck, Langston Hughes, Meredith Monk, Oliver Ranch

Here’s a smattering of scenes from the last 2 weeks.

Here we see the women of Summer Bounty engaging in the time honored tradition of squeezing in just one more run-through before the show. Each hall is different, so there’s always a mad scramble to sing in the space during that precious time before the doors open. If you’ve ever been stuck out side waiting for us to get the show on the road, well now you know what we are up to!

The Green Room is a great place to do this show. The acoustics are fabulous. There were a number of tunes that sounded there best here on Sat. And as if that wasn’t enough, it’s beautiful! Here’s a shot of Old MacDonald revving up the audience for the show.

Somehow we ended up with a lot of props this year; Armageddon cloaks, wigs, bling, feather boas, and a pick-axe! You know, I’m not so sure the foreman is gonna let those ladies go down in the mine dressed like that…

This year there were a lot of languages. One of the hardest to memorize was Tour de France. There were German and French lines to memorize over a very repetitive melody. Someone had the bright idea that the Tenors should be lucky enough to get that assignment. W e were cramming right up to the last (and maybe could have crammed harder, if you know what I mean…) At the City Club, Bryan came up with a solution that amused some, but was met with stern disapproval from others…

After the last show everyone congregates to unwind and relive the highlights of the show. This year we found ourselves once again at TCs house (Thanks TC!). The party was a blast and we sang through a couple tunes from the show. The high point of the night was a rather robust rendition of With a Little Help From My Friends, complete with revival clappin’ ‘n’ stompin’. In TCs house the thing sounded amazing… and loud! I don’t think Gretchen’s relatives from NY knew what hit them!

As usual, the singers were ravenous after the show, so when some smart guy brought a Zach’s pizza, the feeding frenzy began. Gone in 30s!

It was a great show and a great time. Thanks everyone who helped make it happen and thanks to those of you that came to watch the show.

You can view the entire slide show here:
PME Jazz & Pops 2008 Pictures

See you next year!
-Eric

Technorati : A Cappella, Beatles, Berkeley City Club, Green Room, Old MacDonald, Workin in a Coal Mine

This will be my third opportunity to sing the 9th Symphony, and the second time I’ve actually sung it. The first chance was at Pomona College back in 1978, when the great Robert Shaw came and conducted with the Atlanta Symphony, and all the local college choirs joined to provide the chorus; I would miss that one when I was accepted to do a Study Abroad that semester. My old roommate summed up the experience–”Shaw heard us struggling with these lines and said, ‘Beethoven didn’t write this for mortals, he wrote it for gods! You must become gods!’”–at least that’s what I recall from an aerogram he scribbled to me at Oxford. The next opportunity was in 1994, the first year I sang with PME, a true baptism of fire: Jeffrey Thomas asked for people to beef up his American Bach Soloists chorus, having put together an authentic-instruments band for the Ninth as a capper to the Berkeley Early Music Festival [Recently released on CD]. Everyone else had sung the Ninth multiple times before, and though I enjoyed the steep learning curve with no note-bashing, I don’t remember having much time to ponder subtleties before we were recording and performing at First Congregational Church with a world-class group and the World’s Loudest Timpanist.

The Ninth has always occupied an odd, even disturbing place in my musical world: my father was born in Breslau (then part of Germany) during the first World War, part of a very musical academic family that played string quartets, with impromptu musical soirees a focus of the their social life. My grandfather and my father played violin and viola, his older brother Otto, a fine cellist, studied composition with Hindemith among others, and my grandmother was a talented pianist. But she was technically Jewish: thus, as the Nazis consolidated their power, everyone would either die or emigrate. My grandfather succumbed to an aneurysm in 1935, at about the age I am now, having lost his academic post to a Party functionary, already clearly seeing the inevitable destruction of German culture and the co-opting of the remaining artists and musicians. Because my grandfather had served with distinction in the first war, Otto was still allowed to join the German Army, under a special rule: as my father bitterly put it, “he could become cannon fodder” and be killed in the Ukraine in 1942. The three remaining siblings and my Grossmutter all ended up in California–a scholar, a professor, a social worker and an artist–and I still have a huge stash of musty piano scores and sheet music waiting to be sorted and given away. Even from my mother’s side I got a negative attitude about the Ninth–I think from her small-town Indiana perspective it evoked too many newsreels of goose-stepping troops and waving flags, as well as an undefined resentment of how a supposedly civilized culture could fall so far so fast.

Thus my earliest memories of hearing the Ninth are tainted by a strange sense of shame and ambivalence, by the knowledge that this sublime music had been co-opted to set the mood for gigantic and bombastic Nazi party functions. More broadly and tragically, every quality that my father saw as German–diligence, respect for hard work, creativity, discipline, intellect–was turned to serve evil rather than good. He did not just blame the Party, he blamed his old country as well, for becoming what one scholar has termed “Hitler’s willing executioners,” though after joining the American Army he helped bring some of those leaders to a form of justice as a translator before the Nuremberg tribunals.

Even as the soaring lines and poetry moved some deep part of me, I felt the shadow of this history, and recently I have been researching the specific ways in which the SS and the SA bent the Ode to Joy to their purposes despite Beethoven’s distinctly non-Aryan physiognomy and heritage. Of course, the Nazis’ perversion of music mirrored their cynical manipulation of language, from KdF, “Kraft durch Freude” (Strength through Joy, the name of the Nazi recreational-cultural movement), through the bitterly ironic “Arbeit macht frei” (work makes you free) that adorned the entrances to the camps of no return, where many relatives died for their Jewishness, or killed themselves to avoid being killed. Anyone who has seen Leni Riefenstahl’s films like “Triumph of the Will” or “Olympiade” knows how frighteningly beautiful the Nazis’ choreographed multimedia spectacles truly were–and how seductive their combination of music, movement, and message must have been to susceptible participants.

Last Saturday as I watched Sweet Honey moving in front of me I could not help thinking that their dancing was “ecstatic” in the etymological sense of the word (from the Greek “extasis,” meaning taken outside of themselves by this music). As I write this I realize that during the very semester I wasn’t singing Beethoven with Shaw I was studying Renaissance Neoplatonism, and learning that this “ecstatic” potential was the very reason why Puritan religious leaders frowned on music: it opened a line to the soul that was beyond reason, too direct and therefore too dangerous to be deployed without careful constraints. With the suspension of reason, participants and listeners were susceptible to the infusion of ideas without conscious control–something we find laughable in the context of “Dirty Dancing” but menacing in the context of Nuremberg or Berlin.

Athletes sometimes know this feeling of “extasis” too, the “runner’s high,” the suffusion of feel-good chemicals produced by the body as it exercises at a sufficiently intense level: you are lifted up, you feel supernaturally strong, you sometimes get the sense that you are simultaneously outside of yourself looking in, and inhabiting your body in a way that doesn’t happen in your everyday existence.

Rehearsing the Ninth this spring with Lynne has been an intensely athletic experience: more so than other choruses, we are trying to put across the words and the notes with greater clarity than audiences are used to getting in the customary wall-of-sound presentations. For the first time many of us are actually hearing some of the lines and words that otherwise get lost to poor diction. Even this aspect has brought its odd connections, as being “the German pronunciation guy” makes me self-conscious about my limits: thanks to a year in Germany when I was nine years old, and years of listening to my Dad and his relatives, my German is more by ear than by rule.

The rehearsals are a great workout for both the vocal apparatus and the mind: Start with the difficulty of spitting out lines like “Ihr / stürzt-nie / der-Mil / li-onen” (do you bow down, you millions?) without letting Germanic consonant-clusters tangle you up. Add the sopranos’ sustained high A’s, toss in the preposterous alto and tenor lines written by a deaf man whose inner soundtrack still resounded with unrealized ideas, and don’t forget the bass lines that mix marching-song bravado and gravity-defying series of high E’s and F’s as we seek God “über’m Sternenzelt” (above the star-canopy). But it is not enough to get to the notes and sustain them: just as demanding are the changes of dynamic force (crescendos, decrescendos, and sforzandos) that Lynne has been pushing us to honor and perfect, not content to do the usual Beethovenian full-volume blast-away. Recognizing this aerobic demand, we’ve “run the program” straight through far more times than any of us has in previous performances. While some rehearsal sessions addressed only small chunks and technical problems, taking apart particular measures or sections, we’ve had time to execute the whole piece at different tempo markings, even as fatigue takes its toll, exactly as an athlete has to run repeat-intervals and train under game conditions. I think the results will be stunning.

The connection between the physical and the spiritual has always been strong for me–and again I honor my father the classics professor by recognizing the common root of “respiration” and “inspiration,” to breathe, to be suffused with something. In multiple senses, then, we are bringing a “spiritual” dimension to this familiar work, singing it with the rhythmic conviction and technical commitment that we brought to the Negro Spirituals last season. There’s a line from the old movie “Chariots of Fire” that captures it best for me: before the Olympics the devout Scottish middle-distance runner says, “God meant for me to run, and when I run fast, I feel His pleasure.” Robert Shaw was right: singing the Ninth well can take you, even fleetingly, to a plane beyond the mortal, and can connect us to something or someone long gone, as it has for me.

Working on the Ninth this spring–and placing it in the context of the Joy we experienced with Sweet Honey–has redeemed this piece of music in ways I did not expect, from the resonance of the words themselves, to the unexpected rhythmic and dynamic complexities, to the underlying architecture of the layers of instruments and voices. When everything is clicking, whether in rehearsal or performance, when everyone from seasoned veteran to newest member is giving the music their all, a chorus of voices becomes a conduit for some bigger magic, we feel a Pleasure, a Joy, a transcendent Freude, that takes us beyond ourselves to a world of love without oppression or pretension, a celebration of the uplifting and healing power of music. If we can communicate something of this pleasure to the audience, pass along this schöne Götterfunken (beautiful divine spark), then all our hard work will have truly succeeded.

John Stenzel
April 2008

Technorati : Beethoven’s 9th, Napa Valley Symphony, Sweet Honey in the Rock

I arrived at Notre Dame des Victoires last Saturday night at 6:45pm, early for my volunteer duties for PME’s 8pm Dec. 15th Winter Canticles concert. I live in San Francisco, not like most everyone else, and it was an easy hop to the church. I even beat most of the chorus members who had a 7pm call time themselves. There had been a mass in the church which finished at 6:30pm, so rehearsal time was unusually tight and many were stuck in holiday traffic or hoping for parking karma as they circled the streets or garage.

Dressed warmly with long coat, hat and gloves, because I knew I’d be sitting outside the entry doors selling tickets, I proceeded to greet the singers and any early concert-goers as they arrived. I love this part as I know so many personally. It’s really part of the fun of volunteering.

What else does a PME volunteer do, besides enjoy a wonderful concert for free?

• Well, while waiting for our volunteer leader I accepted to hold 2 tickets for will-call for one of the singers’ family, then proceeded to sell those 2 tickets to an early attendee wanting to be sure to get in. (I’d handle the paperwork once we officially were set-up for business….all was documented on an envelope mind you. No need for the treasurer to worry.)

• I helped the Quartet San Francisco volunteer find and position a table for selling their cds, checking with the priest for permission of course.

• I told a couple they had time to get a bite to eat and suggested a place. And for yet another couple, I promised to hold tickets for them to purchase following a quick dinner.
• I surreptitiously took a floral bouquet from a singer, keeping it hidden from Lynne Morrow, found a hiding place just inside the entry in a cabinet and agreed with a wink when I should bring it down the aisle after the performance as a surprise from the singers.
• I held the door open as singers carried steps, staging and sound equipment for set-up. Most attendees probably have no idea that PME brings its own risers, sets them up and takes them down, loading them back downstairs and into a truck at every concert. And they sing too!!
• I listened, not for the first time, about how to access the WC before and during the concert, being mindful of the concern of entering through an alley via an unlocked door vs. taking a very slow elevator. Each venue has its particular idiosyncrasies and its own personalities.
• When our volunteer leader arrived, we shuffled tables for a bit to find the optimum spot and configuration and I proceeded to fold programs while waiting for the cash box and tickets to be ready for use.
• At the same time I continued to greet concert goers, suggesting to some that they had time for some window shopping and to come back after 7:30pm when we’d be open for business. Several chose to hang out in the lobby, mostly because not only was it very cold outside (for SF standards), but also because they could see the chorus rehearsing, and even hear a little, through the glass doors ….always an impressive little hors d’oeuvres before the main course…or chorus!

• Several volunteers from the same family (husband, 14yr. old son and 8yr. old daughter of one of the performers) were also kept busy folding programs, then collecting tickets and explaining the open seating once the doors were open.

• Out in the cold we proceeded to delve out the will-call tickets and sell the remaining tickets to the PME concert attendees…..while announcing that the doors would be open in approximately 5 minutes, several times, to much laughter. No one was upset that the singers were still rehearsing; just a little cold that’s all.

• I got to use my French with a parishioner who came to inquire about the concert. The concert was, after all, in San Francisco’s only French church.
• By the way, not once did I question whether someone was a student or a senior or if their tickets were misplaced or in question. I’ve found giving everyone the benefit of the doubt is always the best way to go, if you want to enjoy volunteering. Also, concert goers are worth it!

After that, once the first note was sung by the chorus, I quickly was relieved of my duties and moved into the next to last pew for a wonderful evening’s concert. My volunteer duties were essentially over, except for the march of the flowers. Even my fingers warmed up as I clapped with mittened hands.

What a joyful way to spend a holiday evening with the Pacific Mozart Ensemble and Quartet San Francisco in perfect collaboration. The usual blog entries talk about the concert and the talents of the performers. Well, this one is a glimpse into some of the action surrounding these well planned events.

As a side note, another part of the joys of volunteering is joining the singers for some singer-eating and drinking afterwards at the Irish Bank down the street! But why did they sit outside?

Warmly,
Susie Shoaf (very longtime PME volunteer supporter)

For all the pics from St Mary’s and NDV Follow the link… PME Christmas Concert 07

Technorati : Christmas, Dave Brubeck, Notre Dame des Victoires, Quartet San Francisco, Sanford Dole, The Irish Bank

This fall, for the first time in several years, PME is performing a holiday concert (The Winter Canticles, featuring special guests Quartet San Francisco). Lovely! Not having sung holiday music for many years, I was curious to dig into the repertoire. I could imagine the old chestnuts and standard stuff from my college years, but was sure that we would be singing music much more challenging and fresh. Well, these pieces are stunning; it is going to be a concert not to be missed. We are performing in many small groups as well as in an ensemble of the whole, and the variety of music will make for a most interesting and inspiring concert. Usually we perform our fall concert in November, and this, being a holiday concert, is midway into December. Consequently, we have a relatively luxurious time to prepare.

As alto section leader, I am grateful for the extra couple of weeks. It can be tricky to support and inspire the section to be well prepared and feel excited, as well as help us to sound our best. Early in the fall the whole group attended all-day retreat at which two wonderful singing teachers (Susan Witt-Butler and James Toland) worked with us on vocal technique and German pronunciation, so we had a substantial experience of conscious singing. In preparing for the alto sectional I solicited suggestions from the mezzos (a more correct term for the voice type of the singers in the alto section) for how to use our time together, and received a couple of recommendations for voice teachers. In the end, I decided that we would better use our time to put into practice what we were already given at our retreat. So we used our time to review and practice what she had brought, to share relevant techniques from our personal voice teachers, with an ear to the particular vocal challenges of this concert, and to work on some challenging passages. As always, I was quite happy with our overall sound and grateful for how generous and cooperative my colleagues are, particularly when being subjected to exercises that I think might be helpful. We are an extremely genial bunch who truly respect each other’s talents, enjoy each other’s company, and are interested in each other’s contributions, so the two or so hours sped happily by. An “Alto Cosmo (pink martini) Party immediately followed the sectional. These parties, at which we drink cosmos out of a variety of special martini glasses and eat delicious munchies, are fast becoming a beloved tradition in our section. Thank you, Gretchen and Emily! We began with nibbles and cocktails just for us. In an hour or so were joined by other “peemers” (members of PME) and friends for an enjoyable evening.

This was a solid start, but some of the members of the section wanted to have a mezzo “note-learning” session too. Often we work on this in extra rehearsals with the whole ensemble, but did not have any scheduled for this concert. Valerie took the reins and organized another Saturday session, this time devoted to repeating and learning passages for accuracy of pitch, rhythm, and dynamic…you know, getting it in your ear…followed by more eating, of course. Everyone who came felt it was time well spent, and indeed, we are singing with much more confidence now.

I have been feeling good about our overall preparation for the concert, but now that we are two weeks away, the devil is showing himself in the details. At the last rehearsal, we realized that we had not worked out the word underlay when we added German and English verses to the Finnish carol we will be performing, and instantly, at least three people stepped up to offer working it out for the section. Sure enough, within twenty-four hours, a revised score is ready to go out to our section and possibly the whole group. Thank you, Emily, Alexis, and Claudia. What a great team!

At my school, the board and faculty regularly recite this verse from Rudolf Steiner:

The healthy social life is found when,
In the mirror of each human soul,
The whole community finds its reflection,
And when, in the community,
The strength and virtue of each one is living.

Pacific Mozart Ensemble weekly strives to do this, and I think we do it very well. From many years of audience comments, we know that you sense something very special when listening to us make music. Often you say that it feels like we love singing with each other. Well, we do. Come to the concert and hear for yourself.

- Peggy Rock

Technorati : Quartet San Francisco, Waldorf

The first thing we saw when walking into the fully decked (and already teeming with people) hotel lobby, was an enormous house size Christmas ornament…or it may have been a piece of modern art and a permanent part of the lobby décor that just happens to look like a Christmas ornament, I wasn’t really sure. Near it stood the 20 ft tree below a starry winter sky, created from hundreds of strings of silver lights hung from the high ceiling. Outside the lobby windows, people were already finding their holiday spirit on the ice skating rink. You could almost think you somewhere colder than San Francisco.

We were shown to our green room, where we had a chance to run some of the pieces on the evening’s set list. I realized that despite having made sure I knew the melodies to the carols we were about to sing, I had forgotten about the fact that sight reading lyrics in English was not going to be quite as easy for me as it is for the native speakers. Shortly after an unusual sound check (audience was already there), it was time to perform.

Much of our material was pieces that we are working on for PME’s holiday concerts. This was both helpful, and scary. Helpful in that it was pieces we knew and it gave us a great opportunity to gauge our progress and readiness, scary because this was the first time we were actually going to sing the music in front of an audience.

Before we even knew it, the first set was over. We couldn’t really be sure that our voices were heard off stage; with the cavernous open lobby space all around us we felt we had to work hard at projecting. Apparently, we should not have worried. Our support crew (Thanks Penny, Jacquie and Corinne!) reported that the music was clearly audible in front of the stage.

The creatures that were getting on stage as we were exiting were a whimsical sight. The Velocity Circus, dressed like trees, unicorns, fairies, trolls and the like put on (what must have been) a wonderful show. Sadly, we were waiting in the wings and unless you were 6 ft tall, you could only see some of the acrobatics performed high above the stage. Judging by the audience reactions, they were great.

We were back on stage and before our second set, one of the children from the audience got the honors to turn on the giant light switch that lit the tree and the starry sky above. However much we may feel that Christmas comes too early every year, seeing the beautiful lights come on and caroling with a group of good friends, under a tree, somehow made me feel that we’ve now truly entered the holiday season. Without snow, I’ve had many a year when that Holiday feeling has somehow eluded me.

Naturally, in the true PME fashion, some of us gathered at the lobby bar afterwards for some snacks and festive beverages. We traded stories about our most meaningful PME moments and generally felt incredibly happy about being choir geeks…oh, and the holidays.

-Mari Marjamaa

P.S. Thank you Lark for getting us the gig, and for all your hard work organizing the troops! Thank you Lynne for fearlessly leading us through this pre-concert exercise.

P.P.S. For more and bigger pics of the event visit KDFC Christmas Party

Technorati : Embarcadero Center, KDFC, Velocity Circus