Our Church Choir
Last year our church choir was preparing for its twenty-seventh spring concert, and I was in charge. No, I was not president of the church choir, I was the "musician's representative!" I had not an inkling what that meant, but, sure enough, my ignorance would not linger. I was to be in charge of organizing all things musical, from equipment to musicians.
The musicians seemed almost ready. The choir still had three songs to learn, but with rehearsals every night and impromptu performances in the dining halls, on the shuttle buses I felt generally confident. As a rule, when you are putting on a performance and feel "generally confident" one week before show time, begin panicking.
The first disaster struck close to home: our drummer's grandmother passed away. Apart from the tremendous blow this tragedy dealt both him and the choir, we needed to find another drummer. Then, like an ominous slinky, the rest of my carefully laid plans fell one on top of the other.
Our directors took ill. The music was taking too long to teach. Our pianist, gone. Our strongest soprano's voice, history. And I broke a bass string. I could do nothing but laugh . . . and cry. I managed to do that quite a bit.
But just when Murphy's Law seemed martially imposed, things got miraculous. The night before the concert, an old church choir drummer stopped by to learn all two hours of the music. The choir learned the rest of the music that same evening and, when we finished, the room glowed with harmony. We were rough, but overall, the evening returned my general sense of confidence. (See above rule.)
When I arrived the next evening, a troubling sight greeted me: a cart with none of the sound equipment I had ordered. We had no microphones. We had no speakers. I had already lost my wits by this point, and now I was inches from losing hope. A group assembled to see what could be salvaged from the situation and was mildly successful. But with all these distractions, the choir could not possibly be . . .
Brilliant! The choir was brilliant. I have never been part of such a beautiful musical experience. But what is the point of this story?
This story explains how our church choir operates: by grace of God and family.
On November 16th, 2013, I attended a concert choir, fall choral concert. This event took place on the Wheaton College Campus, in the Edman Chapel at 7:30 pm. The chapel was well-lit, with long pews for the audience to be seated. The concert began with the audience looking up into a balcony, where the ensemble stood in neat rows. They watched the conductor, who stood on a stage in front of the audience, waiting for their cue.
...this really portrays the realism of war. Overall the use of de-saturated film and handheld cameras is an effective way of portraying the film. It does not only portray the film but also realistically portrays war. Scenes which are sometimes horrific or disturbing to watch give us a tiny insight in to the horrific scenes of war. I feel this is the most realistic war film without actually being there. Spielberg successfully took this film to new levels with not always showing brave and noble men. Spielberg has reached the limits of modern film with his effects and constant persistence to find realistic effects. The opening scene is like a starter of a meal or a taste of what is about to come. It shows how these men are brave but scared. I think the film portrays the diversities of emotions experienced by the men. Overall I think this is a realistic and effective film.
This song began with a strong 4 part harmony in SATB, balanced due to the fact that their were two boy parts and two female parts, that way you couldn’t hear more of one gender. However in the second half of the song the strength of the harmony faltered; this is due to the fact that the boy’s were letting go of the volume, making it sound unbalanced. I did find that the words in this song got jumbled and their meaning lost because of the lack of diction. During the chorus the sopranos were showcasing their ability to sing high notes, they did a good job hitting them and remembering to hold back on the volume so that the rest of the choir could be heard. For the entire song the choir sang in forte and had no dynamic changes, I found that this made it seem boring because they weren’t doing anything to keep us hooked. I think that this song could have used more articulation, like staccato and slurs so that they could showcase their technique as well as their voices. At the end of the song the entire choir cut off at the same time showing that they had been watching their conductor. I wish that they had projected their emotions more in this song, whether that be by smiling or using a tone of voice to suggest feeling, I think that it would have enhanced their performance. The Humberside Collegiate Choir did an amazing job making sure that they all breathed on time and together without c...
This film is about the Battle of Britain during World War II. It happened in 1940. This movie was made 29 years later in 1969. The Nazis tried to invade Britain. The Royal Air Force of Britain fought a grave battle against the Nazis to prevent the invasion. Most of the fighting was in the air. There were lots of fighting scenes between the German planes and the RAF and their allies.
The choir immediately captured my attention and seemed to do the same for everyone else in the audience. I was very impressed by the fact that the choir was made up entirely of college students. It was also stated that some of them sing in the choir just for fun as they are not music majors. There seemed to be an appeal in the fact that the singers were mostly very young. The piece as a whole was also very enjoyable.
Imagine my trepidation, then, when I walked into this church, with its high, vaulted ceilings and an enormous, emaciated, and slightly malicious-looking Christ figure suspended thirty feet among my head. As I came through the entrance, the prelude began. It sounded like nothing less than the soundtrack to a horror movie, as the slasher is about to leap out and dice an innocent schoolgirl. The organ wailed in threatening, building minor chords and did nothing to allay my trepidation.
On Wednesday, May 23rd, I attended the College Choir concert in the Reamer Campus Center. The choir performed a variety of songs, ranging from pieces in Latin to traditional American folksongs. Two of the pieces featured solos, and one even featured percussion instruments. Mrs. Elinore Farnum provided piano accompaniment for each of the songs, and performed beautifully. I was extremely impressed by the talented choir members and their ability to sing such a varied range of songs.
Nappi, Rebecca. “A Place for Music’s Healing Powers.” Student Research Center. EBSCO, 2013. 14 Oct. 2013.
Lately, the top story in the news day after day, months after months have been about William Jefferson Clinton, also known as Bill. Who could blame them, there is nothing better than a story out of the ordinary, especially one with presidential status. For the past months he has been the most talked about figure, being the essential topic for news, talk shows, late night comedy and even going as far as the big screen. Talk about 'Primary Colors' and 'Wag the Dog.' What has gotten to me the most however, were the constant flow of Republicans, along with a few Democrats, who just want to say how shocked and embarrassed they are along with the people of the United States.The president had not just become the most talked about figure, but also one history had ever seen, so far that is, breaking the record and becoming a topic of conversation and debate 'twenty-four seven.' The people, who I think were most affected by this crisis and feel very sad for, are the Republicans, since they had lost severe amount of sleep over the president's bedroom crisis. They had to perform their republican duties by shocking our brains with the president's affair with Monica Lewinsky. We had to ignore the rest of the world news and its issues while they plough through the valley of lies, abuse of power and something they called high crimes and misdemeanors.
there was volatility in the currency market, and the value of the USD dropped vs the euro or the
Brother Terry, lead us in a quick prayer to open the morning's service. The band was already in position and a worship team was waiting in the wings.
As we all waited in line to go into the concert there was a thrill of excitement in the air. I was standing there with two of my friends. when we saw a few other people we knew. " Hey, come over here!" I bellowed.
...ng violated and it must terminate. From this paper, it is clear to see that discrimination against Arab-Palestinians is harmfully justified by Jewish Zionism, the Intifada is not a meaningless attack on the Jews, however, Arabs are quite hypocritical by reciprocating violence, and that the future may or may not hold peace in divided Israel because it, more or less, depends on Arab-Israeli compromises. As it is known, these compromises always tend to include conflicting agendas. Peace, surely, can be reached. It is merely decision regarding which side will initiate and negotiate first. Taking a look at peace talks today, this does not appear to be happening in the near future. It is amazing to bear witness to the incredible amount of violence and hate in a so-called “Holy Land.”
...alestinian demands of a common capital city. And negotiations between the US and Israel does not seem to be anymore productive. The US has to do a little economic arm-twisting, such as withholding foreign aid; to persuade Israel to cease erecting housing projects in disputed areas. But how politically viable is withholding foreign aid from Israel when there is a strong Jewish lobby in DC? Don’t think good ol’ Bubba will want to risk losing anymore political support. The most feasible plan for peace and stability in the Israeli-West Bank area is to give as much foreign aid to the Palestinians as is given to the Israelis, so that Palestinians can build the economy in the West Bank, giving them a future to look forward to, while waiting for a peace plan to be ironed out. Third party military presence on the border area of the West Bank and Israel seems acceptable, too.
Then audience members who were perfect strangers who were screaming loudest would turn to each other with knowing glances and smile because they were sharing the same excitement and connecting with one another over their love of this man’s music. There was no pushing or shoving to get closer to the stage – it wasn’t that kind of crowd. Instead, there was mutual respect for one another’s space within the confines of the too-small venue. Nobody wanted to be the person who ruined it for someone else. It was this respect that made the audience members’ connections with one another that much stronger – we were all here to listen to this wonderful man’s music and see his performance – and, of course, we were here to enjoy it.