Verdi Withdrawl

It's been a long time since I've had postpartum issues with big performances. Since I've made the switch from student musician to professional musician some years ago, I've been able put away the music of a concert and move on to the next project without too much of a thought of what I just did. However, after this past weekend's Verdi Requiem performance, I found it quite difficult to let it go.

It might have been that this was my first Verdi Requiem, but I think it was more about the fact that the performance was extremely powerful, and emotional. Many members of the orchestra commented that it was the best Verdi Requiem Edmonton has heard in the last fifteen years. For a new tenor in the choir beside me, it was his first concert ever with orchestra, so his enthusiasm only heightened my awareness of the significance of the performance for me, taking me back twenty years, when I sang the Brahms Ein Deutches Requiem with the University of Ottawa choirs and orchestra, my first large choir and orchestra experience. There was also the added emotional issue that the performance was dedicated to the memory of a chorister who suddenly lost his battle with cancer this past August, only a week before the first rehearsal (read more about this here from the conductor of Richard Eaton Singers, and of the Verdi Requiem performance).

In any event, it has taken me three days to recover from the performance. I found myself in the grocery store on Monday wandering the aisles at a complete loss as to why I was there, and why I would ever need food to sustain life when I felt I had given everything of myself only twelve hours earlier. I did two laps of the store and looked in the cart only to find a 4 litre jug of milk, a package of English muffins, peanut butter, pita bread and humus. It sounds funny now, and my wife and I laughed about the state of our fridge this morning, but at the time I swear I was on the verge of tears. And I felt this way for nearly two full days. Even today, although now emotionally stable again, and found my lost appetite, I still find myself singing the fugue subjects from the Libera Me, or hearing the echo of the bass drum in the Dies Irae. Perhaps a second performance would have lifted me out of this a little quicker, but in any event, in some ways it was a life-altering performance, and not one I'm soon to forget.

However, it is now on to the next project. Working on Bach BWV 140 and the Haydn Little Organ Mass for two performances on December 6th with Alberta Baroque should pull me out of this quickly - as I'm not sure that singing in the back-up "Whoville" chorus for Dr. Seuss' "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" is going to do it for me this weekend.

Dies Irae!

Countdown - four more sleeps until Verdi!

Technology in the Recording Session.

I posted this up on ChoralBlog this morning, but thought I'd put a copy of it on here too. Mainly because I found this software absolutely fascinating.

This past weekend, I was involved in a Mens' Choir concert with Pro Coro Canada here in Edmonton, Alberta. This concert is becoming a regular feature on the Pro Coro season, and has proven to be a crowd favorite, mainly for the original programming and the captivating visual aspects of the performance. Balanced with "serious" choral music, Poulenc, Schubert for example, but there is also a fair amount of avant-garde, never heard before works (often improvised at the concert itself). For example, last year we invited a "electric" cellist to the show and did a few set of improvised tape loop works. It is these works that make the concerts memorable.

This weekend we worked with two electronic music specialists, who brought along all sorts of recording equipment and manipulation devices to create live improvised sets that involved the choir, as well as the audience, and tape loop. It was a huge hit! I had a long chat with one of the electro-musicians about his equipment and software, and it turns out he is beta testing the latest version of Melodyne DNA. Melodyne is a program that can split your recording WAV file, or whatever format you use, and show you exactly which note is being played or sung - even individual notes in a chord. Then, of course, you can change the notes (one at a time) of one instrument or voice, without affecting the rest of the instruments or voices. A major step above other "Autotune" programs, as it works with polyphonic and homophonic single track recordings, rather than only dealing with individual monophonic tracks.

He pointed me to a few YouTube videos that I'd like to share with you. Although these are not choral recordings (I looked, and I couldn't find any) I think you can see the possibilities of editing and fixing individuals wrong notes on recordings.

Of course, the debate then - is this the right thing to do? Personally, I don't think it is, our eternal quest for perfection I think is detrimental to the musical output, however, the geek inside me loved the technology and process, and I'd give anything to be able to play with the software for a day or two.

First - A longish video describing the software

And then a video made by the engineer I talked to this weekend. Not being a Guns and Roses fan, he decided to alter the the guitar solo in "November Rain" making Slash look as though he were tone deaf:

and on the eighth day ...

Having enjoyed all 25 hours of All Saints' Day (thank you day light savings time - see you in the Spring!) I'm wondering if we can just keep that extra hour in the day, every day, and while we are at it, add one extra day in the week? I could get SO much more accomplished!

Great concert yesterday afternoon with Da Camera. In particular, the Mendelssohn Sechs Sprüche was a highlight for me, and much of the audience I think. The rest of the program was also well received, and the choir's first attempt at Jesu Meine Freude was full of highlights. Bravo to all I say.

So what's next you ask?

• Next weekend is a "dark" weekend for me - in the sense that I can actually get my tux to the cleaners and not worry about needing it for at least 14 more days. I do have a full slate of rehearsals to prepare for a Pro Coro Concert, the annual "Men's choir" concert, which is becoming a mainstay for the choir and is always a personal highlight for my concert year. That concert is on the 15th.
• Then in a blink of an eye Richard Eaton Singers performs the Verdi Requiem on the 22nd (a first sing for me, if you can believe it, and I'm loving it!)
• Then six days later I have to prepare the choir for the annual Christmas Wish Foundation concert with the Royal Canadian Artillery Band, not really a musical highlight, but good old fashioned fun, and anytime you get to sing the Sir David Willcocks' descants with the Davis Organ makes it worth it.
• A day later it is Advent I, which includes the Advent Carol Service.
  
• A week after that Da Camera sings with Alberta Baroque on their Christmas show, with BWV 140 (apparently I have to sing the tenor recit - frankly, I'm scared). Also on this program I get to conduct Haydn's Missa brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo (aka the "little organ mass")- which has one of the most beautiful Benedictus (Benedicti?) movements in any of his masses.
• A week and a half later I'm singing with RES for the Edmonton Symphony's lighter Christmas Classics concert. Again, not particularly musically fulfilling, aside from RVW's Fantasia on Christmas Carols, which will always have a firm place in my heart, however the Christopher Rouse "Karolju", is just not doing it for me. Perhaps worth a later blog post. It will, however, attract a good sized audience, and they are sure to love it all.
  
• On all weekends in December I got talked into doing a few caroling gigs, something I haven't done since I left Ottawa, and figured I was pretty much done, but the fee for this is almost embarrassingly good, too good to turn down. And the other three singers are great friends, so aside from the financially rewarding aspect, it's going to be a hell of a good time, even if it is four hours a day singing in a shopping centre.
  
• Then it is Christmas! Two Christmas eve services and one Christmas morning service.
• Then my wife and I are packing up the car and heading HERE for two nights for our annual "sit in the lodge, swim outside in the huge heated pool while the snow falls, enjoy the mountain backdrop, skate on the lake, play cribbage, eat good food, drink good wine, leave our computers at home, and DO NOTHING for three days. A good way to spend the extra money made on caroling!
  

Of course, by the time we get to the Lodge, it will probably look like this, but you got to trust me on this one - there is nothing like swimming in a 90 degree pool when it's below freezing outside!