1) Repertory: The Steering Committee will be meeting soon to consider repertoire for the coming year. If you have any suggestions about what pieces we could perform, please email me at iccpres@ACIthaca.org or let any Steering Committee member know at our next rehearsal.
2) Important Ticket Information for the May Concert
• Tickets will cost $25 each
• You will receive 5 tickets to sell. We encourage you to sell as many tickets as you can! Just ask Vivian for more when you run out.
When you sell tickets, please mention the Sunday, May 3 50th Anniversary concert of our “sister” choir, Cayuga Vocal Ensemble and let folks know that if they buy tickets to both concerts, they will receive 20% off BOTH tickets. (quick history note: Gerald started the CVE as “The Gerald Wolfe Singers” back in 1976!)
• Discounted tickets may ONLY be purchased online. The QR code is on the poster, but people can also just visit our website.
• Here is a bit of information about CVE’s May 3 concert:
"Cayuga Vocal Ensemble is proud to present CVE Sings!, a concert at Saint Catherine of Siena in Ithaca on May 3rd at 4 PM. Music will include a Bach double-choir motet, 'Ich lasse dich nicht' and a new work, 'Jahaaṅ,' by contemporary composer Reena Esmail."
• Finally, in the spirit of collaboration and celebration of twin 50th anniversaries, members of each chorus will receive complimentary tickets to the other’s performance!
3) I don’t know how the Chamber Singers do it! I know that I feel wiped out when rehearsal ends at 9 pm. I’m not used to music that changes time signatures and tempo frequently, let alone intriguing (for lack of a better word) passages where we have triplets and unusual note sequences, and in between these sequences I am counting carefully so that I make the tenor entrances at the right time. Whew! Suffice it to say, I find that level of concentration tiring. Here’s the funny thing though, and maybe you experience it too: that feeling of accomplishment when you finally catch on to a particularly tricky passage. As these bits and pieces fall into place, we will enjoy the music more and more, continuing right up to our performance! Having listened to A Sea Symphony several times now, I can’t wait to work with our soloists and the orchestra!
Time for the weekly installment of “What Would You Listen To If You Could Listen To Just One Song For The Rest Of Your Life?”
Ginamarie Lester "12: 51" (The Strokes)
Yusuf Devil’s Trill Sonatas (Guiseppe Tartini)
Gerald Wolfe “Come, Ye Daughters” (opening chorus of Bach’s
St. Matthew Passion)
Michele Mitrani "A New Decade" (The Verve)
Dianne "Love Me Do" (Beatles)
Jane Roth "Bohemian Rhapsody" (Queen)
Deborah "Unter Dayne Vayse Shtern" (Brudno)
Tina Snead Anything Mozart (Tina wrote, “I can’t write one song!")
Enjoy the intrepid spring bulbs cou rageously poking their heads up above the soil and enjoy the lengthening days! The temperature hit 70° today and put me in mind of this poem by Billy Collins. Maybe crocuses instead of peonies, but you get the idea! See you next week!
Today
If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze
that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house
and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,
a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies
seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking
a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,
releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage
so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting
into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.
