We're people who
love to sing and love to sing together. To celebrate our shared interests
we perform public concerts, an annual caberet night for chorale members,
sponsor an annual Craft Fair, support a web site, attend each other's
individual concert activities, and join in a year-end ice cream social.
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welcomeome
welcome
welcome
John's
wit and humor make rehearsal time enjoyable and productive. It has
become traditional to collect his witticisms in print annually. Though
being present when and where they were said certainly enhances appreciation,
here is a sampling of recollected comments:
from the 1997-98 season
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- Tenors, that should
be the highest B flat you ever sing. On your resume it should appear
as a B flat with an arrow going up.
- If they don't applaud
there, I'm going to turn around and bow anyway.
- (To basses singing
wrong notes. . .) That's a little richer than Bach had in mind!
- (To the basses) Another
classic viola line, not meant to be sung by the human voice.
- Nice! If nothing else
it's "rangy" -- from low G to . . .
- (Bach) It's about the
closest you'll ever get to being inside a beehive.
- (Alto low note) It's
not a great big deal because nobody will hear it; but you'll sleep
better if you get it.
- If he'd written in
those other notes it would have made very nice harmony there. He
must have just forgotten to put it in.
- If you get lost I guarantee
you that there will be at least 3 people in your section who will
be singing right notes to help you get back in.
- (To basses) Can we
just have a little target practice with that "est ad Patres"?
- It can't sound like
one great big long taffy pull!
- [Basses sing their
line slower than the piano.] Your tempo is actually better!
- I hear some meandering
between g and a - making beautiful harmony, but . . .
- Basses, do the slide
as strongly as you can. At least they'll hear the journey, even
if they don't hear the ending.
from the 1994-95 season
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- Practice tuning the
first chord of the "Carmina Burana." Learn to love that
sound.
- Don't do what I
say, do what I think.
- Don't take for granted
that my tempo is necessarily the same as your tempo.
- We should have a cup
and a half of consonants and it'll sound good.
- I always think of the
warm up before the concert to be the last rehearsal. And if we do
two concerts, the first one is the dress srehearsal. So that means
we have four more rehearsals.
- [Aida] two measures
of that were absolutely not beautiful. I won't tell you which ones.
- [Bartered Bride] That's
what gives it the breathless feeling -- because, in fact, your are
breathless.
- It's a good exercise
because you do everything you could possibly do on one note.
- Listen tot he accompaniment
at measure 21. Now -- never, ever listen to that again.
- [Announcing his conductin
of the BC Chorale in the National Anthem for the opening game of
the Red Sox and a possible interview afterward] I'll say, (falsetto)
"And I'd like to say hello to all my friends in the Heritage
Chorarle."
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