5/18/10

Today's BBC sinters rehearsal took place at a very small refurbished church.  When we stepped inside, they had rows of seats with programs and photocopied text and music for us to follow along.  They kicked off their rehearsal with "Sure on This Shining Night" by Samuel Barber.  I absolutely love this text and the Barber setting was pleasant to listen to.  I liked the way they performed this piece.  I've heard it done with quite a lot of pop sound but, I guess I should expect that the BBC Singers would be quality. I felt that the entrance gestures were less patterned and therefore more difficult to read than the BYU style.  I noticed that throughout the rehearsal it seemed as though certain singers, particularly women, were competing for their color to be heard.  There wasn't a very obvious lack of blend just a very subtle attempt to take over the sound.  Does that make sense?

The second piece they rehearsed was "The Monk and His Cat" by Barber again.  It was obviously a very playful song about the love between this scholar and his cat.  You could even "hear the cat" in the piano part.  For this piece, it seemed like the overall sound of the choir darkened considerably.  I'm thinking this was intentional because of a comment made by their director.  He made a comment that the BBC Singers is one of the few professional choral groups in England that actually has female altos which makes the treble sound a bit darker.  I had another complaint about the sound of the choir in this piece...the words were not intelligible.  Though this group may be less disciplined with tone and blend, they are incredibly sensitive to dynamics and also wonderful sight readers.

The 3rd piece they rehearsed was "Under the Willow Tree" a setting that I'm very familiar with for we sang it in honor choir in high school.  The first run through was a little rough rhythmically but I just have to keep reminding myself that they are most likely sight reading all of this music.  There was an alto soloist that I really didn't enjoy.  Her tone was so swallowed and she had all sorts of visible tension.  I could see it in her hands and neck and worst of all, her tongue!  This left me wondering, "what...why?"  There is a section of the music where it just really builds and there is this HUGE chord to the text "where shall we sleep my love" and it modulates.  The higher voices were just stabbing the music there.  It was so difficult to hear them rehearse over and over this bit without correcting that particular issue.  

Later on in the rehearsal they got to pieces where I could really hear a wonderful blend, beautiful dynamic contrast, and perfectly crisp consonants.  

Then they did "Twelfth Night" and I liked how sensitive they were to the composers intent based on what is included in the score.  The consonants were a little rocky at the ends of polyphonic phrases and there were a few problems with the pitch in the soprano line.  Other than that, I rather liked this piece and their rehearsal approach with it.

For the last half of rehearsal they worked on Schuman music set to Walt Whitman text.  The director took a moment to talk to us about this selection.  I was getting the feeling that he was basically saying we're only doing this set because we have to.  BBC makes us do this kind of thing.  I was surprised as they sang a section "To You" and the soloist was surprisingly unconfident.  These pieces seem to be a bit robotic.  I think perhaps the singers are struggling to enjoy them because their director doesn't enjoy them.  I think they have more potential however I do think they are rather strange.  Is it ok that I was offended at what he was saying about Whitman's poetry?

-today we didn't have class because we attended a BBC singers rehearsal.

*we were there from 11:30 until 3:30 with only a small lunch break

*I took SO many notes on their performance

*notes on rehearsal technique

-lunch of food from Damascus

-dinner of pasta...as usual

-performance at Wesminster Abbey

*handel's music and Handel's burial sight

-sing along piano bar immediately after

-musical theatre stuff 

*orange drink and mockery

*bathroom

*random friends

*called a virgin if it's your first time singing there

-it used to be a public bathroom

-Scott left early to skype his mommy

-meeting up with Kim and Paige

-going home barefoot and seeing a man peeing right there on the street....eeeew!

-home late and met up with Scott, made tea and ate bread, talked about Venice

5/17/10 Holistic Education

Today in class we reviewed all the concerts we have been to recently including the Tallis Scholars, The Sixteen, and Oxford.  It seemed to me during the discussion of the Tallis Scholars vs. The Sixteen that everyone felt they had to choose sides or pick a favorite and that favorite was The Sixteen.  I think this was probably due to the fact that we watched The Sixteen rehearse and Harry Christophers took the time to give us a little lecture about the origin of the group and the music selection for this evening's performance.  It's easy to see how everyone felt more connected to the group.  I simply enjoyed each for different reasons.

Also in class we looked at Bach's "B Minor Mass", Handel's "Dixit Dominus", and Vivaldi's "Gloria" in preparation for the concerts we will be seeing in the near future.  I really enjoyed discussing "Dixit Dominus" for it's a piece that I'm less familiar with and it's pretty brilliantly written.  The text "as it was in the beginning" appears again at the end of the song within the same music which is a witty thing to do.  We also talked about it's "ebullient" qualities (this is a new word for me) and I really like how I feel when I listen to this piece.  It's very regal sounding and quite a bit dancy.

Scott and I had a very educational afternoon at the British Library.  As it turns out, there was a huge display of all musical items in the collection.  I saw Beethoven's tuning fork which, supposedly, at one point belonged to V. Williams.  There was one of Purcell's original manuscripts, Handel's "Messiah", Haydn's "London Symphony", and Vaughan Williams "Scott of the Antartic" all in their own hand.  Incredible!  What a holistic education!

Tonight we attended the "London Bach Choir Rehearsal" in the only Byzantine church left standing in England.  They sang the "B Minor Mass" and Brahm's "Requiem" which was a surprise and a treat.  I was most impressed with the fact that this choir of 200 could sing all these melismas with such accuracy.  They happened to be auditioning assistant conductors that night which was also a unique thing to see.  I preferred the first conductor.  His rehearsal technique was more effective though it's difficult to say why because I couldn't hear what he was saying.  He was probably more more specific about what he wanted and he didn't spend too much time dwelling on specific problems.  He just seemed to expect that he would say it, they would rehearse it, and then everyone could move on and not make the same mistake twice.  Of course this is the ideal but, he seemed to hold the choir to this standard.

-running with Scott

-class with many concert reviews of the Tallis Scholars, The 16, Oxford

-looking at B Minor Mass, Dixit Domino, and Vivaldi's Gloria

-lunch of spaghetti

-fun at the British Library

*literature, poetry, theatre (Macbeth connection) , printing (Crandall Museum connection), religion, media, science (da vinci was an incredible mind, Physics Connection), politics (magna carta and king George...Robin Hood connection again)

*toe bothering me

-Pret for dinner (yummy tomato soup) and looked for shoes

-London Bach choir rehearsal at Wesminster Cathedral (only Byzantine building left standing in London)

*helped Chris and Anna finish off some fries and a Coke..yea baby

-Bach's B Minor Mass and Brahm's Requiem

*auditioning assistant conductors

-choice between piano bar and the dutch pancake house...Scott chose the dutch pancake house with Emily and Steve yummmy

-almost loosing my life to the motorcyclist

-random and fun night at the pancake house

5/16/10 Sunday

Today we attended the Oxford ward on our way out to the colleges.  We sang three numbers in church, all hymns.  The setting was ideal for truly bearing my testimony of the savior through song.  I felt pretty passionately about the text of "I Stand All Amazed" it nearly brought tears to my eyes to bear testimony in the intimate setting of the chapel with this ward all eyes and ears for us.  It felt so right to perform that way. 

Our next stop was to practice with our respective colleges.  I sang with Lincoln College.  What an exciting challenge.  I felt the greatest challenge was following this choir master.  I just struggled to get used to the down beats being where the upbeats are in his conducting pattern.  It wouldn't be a big deal to do this and just keep tempo but, we were practicing the psalm and these are always performed with more free rhythm. Ahhhh....struggle.  In the end we managed to pull ourselves together on that one and the director was patient and very understanding with us.  Eventually the members of the choir started to show up and that made things way easier.  The piece we were all obviously strongest on was "Hail Gladdening Light".  We also did Purcell in G for the canticles and sight read a few hymns.  The first hymn was a since to sight read because we had just sung it in sacrament meeting "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say".  muahahaha.  Our Purcell in G could have used another rehearsal for polishing but, the English don't seem too worried about perfection for their evensong and they are all pretty amazing sight readers.  

After the rehearsal we had tea with the Oxford students and chatted about school, music, and everyone was pretty interested in hearing about our study abroad.  I found out that this particular choir is auditioned but it's composed of students from some of the different colleges at Oxford and many of them aren't even studying music, like many of the students in our study abroad.  We also chatted about the differences between their hymns and ours, the differences in musical terminology, and the differences between our unis (what people call University in England).  I had a particularly fun conversation with a girl who was asking how many counts a dotted minim (dotted half note) would get in 6/8 time and I had fun explaining that it's the same count wise, just a different name...6 beats of course.  A little bit of basic theory mmm fun.

My experience at Oxford was absolutely wonderful.  I could see that the tradition of choral music is incredibly alive there and we were fortunate to sing with an interesting and talented group of individuals.  More than anything, I could tell that these individuals were all friends.  They enjoy singing together and they get a kick out of sight reading each Sunday together.  

-most amazing day at Oxford

-first we attended the local LDS services

*chatted with the locals

*had a munch and mingle

*sang in the meeting

*they do their meetings backwards

-headed out first, after some confusion, to rehearse with Lincoln College

*just us at first

*others joined, one girl asked me if we sing a cappella in America...ummm yes.

*tea with the students

*evensong

*drinks and mingling with people in the congregation and the clergy

*dinner-so fancy, felt like Harry Potter, great conversation about music and culture and social things, Tim gave me his meal and got his late, students stand as the fellows walk in, invite for more drinks but we had to go to catch our coach

-met up with everyone and boasted about how awesome our experience was, it seemed like nobody felt their experience was that great

-slept on the bus ride back

-scott carried me home because he's awesome like that

5/15/10 Saturday at Oxford

Today I had the privilege of attending the New College evensong rehearsal.  I heard from the small group that attended their rehearsal yesterday that these children are incredible musicians.  Sister Hall asked who would like to attend the rehearsal and I shot up my hand.  She took the first six she saw and what a treat it was to watch these little boys working on such thick repertoire!  They practiced music for their evensong and some for their other concert engagements.  This rehearsal was conducted like a well oiled machine.  The boys quickly moved between pieces (silently), they helped each other, and they answered questions about theory.  I just went over the modes with Matt yesterday and I was blown away that these children were already well trained enough to know what mode they were singing in.  There was also a portion of rehearsal where the conductor pointed to each child in turn to check how well they knew the piece and how well they were singing it.  If one boy messed up the director would stop and ask "what happened there?" and the boy would answer with something like "I keep singing the fifth sharp" or something like that.  The director would say "what are you going to do?" and the boy would say "fix it".  What dedication from such a young musicians.  I learned a few things from this rehearsal but mostly that children are so capable!  If you set the standard high and encourage them in the proper ways, they will rise to the occasion.

We attended evensong there with them.  They sang an introit, Stanford's "ascendit", responses Howells "St. Paul's Service", and Finzi's "God is Gone Up".  It's been so fun to listen to the songs that we studied in culture class before coming to England being performed live and by some pretty incredible and well respected choirs.

-roam with Logan

-headshots

-covered market for Scott's man bag (he didn't purchase) and umbrella that he loved but didn't get, he says in his blog it's because he didn't want to spend the money and cart it home...the real reason is that it was blue and had accents that he felt were to feminine.  

-tour with Ruth, seeing where famous people went to school

-oxford time, thus us being on time to Christ's Church meant we were 5 minutes early

-sandwiches at Mortens, ate there 2x. :) sooo fresh and yummy, lovely courtyard

-Asmolean Museum

-New College evensong, scott experienced the choir the day before

-6 people at the rehearsal, very intimate setting, got to do all that with Scott

-not open to the public, just students

-sleeping on the bus back

5/14/10

Today was our first of three days at Oxford.  I've been looking forward to this experience as a highlight for the entire program.  We split into groups and headed off to different choir schools to observe these young singers and some students even got to tutor these children in music.  We followed Sister Hall to the Dragon School, a private school for boys and girls.  I really enjoyed observing these two choir classes.  These children are ages 8 to 12 and quite a well behaved but energetic group.  Their teacher was great at captivating their attention.  I felt like I was watching Marry Poppins directing music she was just such a ball of energy.  They did some simple warm ups.  It was intriguing that these kids pronounced the African text in the warm up as if it was french.  I was blown away that they all study English, French, Latin, and Greek.  Amazing.  It was fun to see music be taught in this way.  Such a contrast from what we have been hearing from the children at the Choir Schools associated with the cathedrals and abbeys.

That evening I attended evensong at Christ Church with the same group of students.  I was really impressed by the acoustics in their church and the warm tone created by the boys in the choir.  

-first day at Oxford

-split into groups

-dragon school

-Jess, Nick, me trying to get ahead and do our own thing

-market time: bought bread, jessica goes crazy over scarves

-gathering for evensong at Christ's Church College

-purchase stockings

-take off on busses

Parallels

There are many similarities between the exodus of Latter Day Saints across the plains to the west and the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt.  First, the leaders of each exibition were similar in faith and experience.  Moses learned his leadership skills through the time he spent in the military.  Similarly, Brigham Young learned under the stewardship of the prophet Joseph Smith and worked along side him during the difficult move from Missouri to Nauvoo.  There is no question that each of these leaders experienced trials and the Lord knew these trials would come.  We read in Exodus and in D&C 136 as the Lord promises that if his appointed leaders and his chosen people would endure these trials, they would be blessed for each of these groups were God's "chosen people".  Both leaders had the Lord's blessing and guidance upon beginning these journeys and believed from the beginning that it was the will of the Lord that they do so.

In D&C 136 we also read that the saints were promised they need not fear their enemies; that the Lord would "do (his) pleasure with them".  This was also the case with the Israelites who crossed through the parted Red Sea that came crashing down over the Egyptians, their enemies, who were chasing after them. Each of these groups witnessed miracles along the way.  The Lord promises, "marvel not at these things, for ye are not yet pure; ye can not yet bear my glory; but ye shall behold it if ye ae faithful in keeping all my words".  He would show them his glory after the trial of their faith which, since they were tried from the beginning, I think he showed them bits of His glory along the way, helping them keep hope and faith.  The Mississippi River even froze over for them to cross.  This parallel to the children of Israel is a pretty clear one to me!

At the end of their journeys, it is true to say that both groups suffered immeasurably.  Yet, for those who made it to the promised land, they could see the hand of the Lord in it.  The Lord does keep his promises.  In Exodus 13, Moses tells his people "remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by the strength of the hand of the Lord brought you out from this place".  The saints knew this was also true for them and they established a headquarters in Salt Lake.  

It's incredible to study and compare these two groups of the Lord's faithful.  Both suffered immeasurably but in the end were blessed immeasurably.  We read account after account of these miracles in the lives of the saints who crossed west.  The Lord keeps his promises.

The Crandall Printing Museum

Did you know that the WORLDS most complete Guggenheim printing "shop" is in Provo Utah?  Seems random doesn't it.  Well, that is what I thought before I visited this little gem of a museum last week.  Mr. Crandall started printing when he was 14 and learned that trade from his father.  It was this apprenticeship that fostered within him a love for printing.  After trying his hand at the business and other business ventures such as building a theme park (half the size of Disneyland) the mayor of Provo asked him to come and start a similar theme park project in Provo which never came to fruition and he started his printing museum instead.

     This museum takes you through the history of printing from Guggenheim's printing of the Bible to the printing of the Book of Mormon.  Through the tour it becomes evident in the discussion of history that printing played an important role in religious and secular history.  Words printed on the page were expressions of spirituality, a means of exchanging ideas, spreading messages, and leading us in our first steps toward globalization.

   I enjoyed this experience most of all as it related to the restoration of the Christ's church on the Earth.  We looked at how the development of printing lead so beautifully and in perfect time for the printing of the Book of Mormon which would allow missionaries and church leaders a tangible set of doctrine to differentiate them from other faiths but also to build on the truths in the Bible.  The most incredible part of the museum experience is the way Mr. Crandall explained how nearly impossible it would have been for so many books to be printed in such a short amount of time but, they had a goal of 5,000 copies to make in a very short amount of time and the men in that print shop made it happen miraculously and, for those of faith, we believe it happened by the hand of the Lord.  It's incredible to think about and watch how long it would have taken to go through each of the steps necessary to create a book, even with all the technological advancements since Guggenheim's first printing of the Bible.  It was truly a miracle.  Another facet of my testimony of the Book of Mormon being a true and wonderful book, there was so much effort put into providing these precious words for the world to read and it is truly a blessing.