Scarlett Letters

I'm sitting on the bus going to work this morning (annoying, expensive story), going over my music for Sunday's show, when a man sits down in a seat across the aisle, takes out a looseleaf, and starts reviewing music himself. Turns out he's a former president of SLGC and is now singing with the Seattle Men's Chorus. Like me, he wasn't feeling 100% about knowing his music for heir opening night; bus time is good for that. Anyway, I was entertained.

My flist is full of Locus Awards and Doctor Who. I can't write about the first at all except to say that I hope everyone had a good time, and I'm sorry to have missed the many friends who were in town. I can write about the second in a limited fashion, but that's for another post.

Yesterday, however, was the last full, intensive chorus day for this season but one. ironymaiden, joyful_storm and I headed out of Seattle at about 12:30 and tore down I-5 to a little house on a lake for an afternoon's potluck with the chorus, then into Olympia proper for our show at the Capital Playhouse.

Gotta say, this was the best show of the season. It was our cleanest, sharpest performance. Everyone sounded wonderful. We had an almost full house (a relief for me after all the anxiety attendant around ads that were paid for and weren't printed, and a concert in a city I barely know). The acoustics in the place are perfect for this sort of performance, but then we so rarely get to perform in a proper theater that it felt like a little dream come true. The lighting was excellent. We had great energy. It was all I could have asked for.

We went to McMennamin's for the after-party and, what with the drive and the dropping off of my passengers, I didn't walk into the house until about 2:30 AM. Fell into bed and slept like the dead.

The chorus has one last appearance: we're singing the national anthem at the Seattle Storm game this coming Wednesday evening. It'll be a nice capper to the season. And then? Then I get my Tuesday nights back for a while. I'm really looking forward to that. I loves me my chorus and I loves me the singing, but I do need a break.

Last Tuesday evening was the annual chorus' spring cast party/members' meeting. At this meeting, among other things, election of board members occurs. Each board position term lasts for two years. My term is up this year. I'm proud of myself that I declined to serve another two years on the board. My position was that I wanted the time to write and that I wouldn't be able to devote the time the chorus would need of me. If it was a choice between singing and being a board member, I'd have to choose the former.

No one argued. Some people expressed disappointment that I wouldn't be continuing, but no one tried to talk me out of the decision. A couple of people said that, given my reasons, they could only support my choice. I appreciated that in a big way.

It was tougher to do than I expected. I think we all like to believe that we're indispensable in some way, that no one can do the job we can do. But the truth is that the chorus survived without me before and it will continue to do so after I step down. The group is full of good, capable people who will be able to move the chorus forward.

Today is the chorus board retreat. My goal is to have all the publicity materials pulled together to pass along to whomever has an interest in taking care of publicity moving forward. It won't be a great issue if I don't complete the work before the meeting; the season doesn't officially end until we sing our Olympia show. But I'd like to get all my materials together for the succession and just have done with it.

It's still tougher to do than I thought it would. But it's the right choice.

It's suddenly summer in Seattle: warm weather, clear blue skies. Merlin has stopped hiding under the bedclothes, and Spanky continues to shed a kitten's worth of fur each day. (I should save the stuff, make a sweater.)

Meanwhile, I'm practicing my brains out for the concert this weekend. My biggest challenge—beside the concentration issue I mentioned a couple of days ago—has been learning the timing for my solo. It's different in the Broadway recording (which is what I used to prep for the audition; I know, I know, I shouldn't have) than it is in our arrangement. I've been working with a MIDI created for rehearsal purposes. And, very kindly, our accompanist recorded the piano accompaniment for me so that I could practice with the music I'll actually be singing with. A HUGE help. I may have to give him chocolate.

And of course, I've been working on the rest of the music, too. Predictably I have my favorites ("A South African Trilogy," "Soon in the Morning," "Let the River Run") and the ones I like least ("If We Only Have Love," "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor"). I'm loving singing in Nguni (but then I love singing in foreign languages). And I'm loving singing the spirituals. But I'm having real trouble with the schmaltz; it just makes me want to clown around and it's an act of self control not to do so.

I've been going back and forth in my head about this program in some ways, unsure I liked it one day, in love with it the next. And though many other people in the chorus have had concerns about our having to learn the volume of music we're doing, that hasn't bothered me at all. I just know that it's work and that it needs to be done. In the end, seeing the written pieces we'll be doing for narration (I'll be reading a poem), and seeing our small groups coming together, I think it's going to be a really good show.

I just kinda wish I could leapfrog all the practice, magically know everything I need to know, and just go perform.

In the middle of March, I submitted calendar listings for the SLGC concert to approximately 25 Web sites. I was so proud of myself. I was on top of it. Today, I'm not seeing our event on at least a third of these Web sites. The prospect of resubmitting them makes me want to bash my own head in rather than having to do it all over again. I'll lose at least half a day doing it. Why aren't the listings showing up?

I haven't seen our event posters anywhere in town despite paying a company a considerable sum to get them distributed. Friends tell me they've seen them, but I haven't. Where are they?

I can't get iTunes to start a MIDI where I want it to start. I've forgotten the command to do it.

I've been rehearsing for the better part of the afternoon and I still don't know all the music. I know about . . . half of it. Maybe. I'm having serious focus issues. Helluva hard time just focusing on getting words down. I've never had this sort of difficulty learning music before. It's got nothing to do with complexity; most of this music is comparatively easy (especially considering the complexity of the music for the last show). It's a concentration issue. I hate this.

And I still have to create small flyers to distribute. Maybe I'll get up at Oh-God-Thirty tomorrow morning, design them, and get them pritned at Kinko's before rehearsal.

Aaaaaaaack.

I've spent the afternoon going over music for chorus rehearsal this evening. One of the pieces we're supposed to have memorized for tonight is a three-part piece sung in Nguni, an African (specifically Bantu) dialect with clicks. I know our vocal part and I know most of the words (even the click words), but I keep tripping over the words in the last part (lots of "B"s, "T"s, and "W"s), and I find myself thinking what a good mouth warm-up it would be for acting class (except, of course, that acting class has concluded).

It's a fun piece to sing, but it is, and will continue to be, a challenge.

It's that time, folks.
This spring, Seattle Lesbian and Gay Chorus presents

Rise Up & Sing!
Songs of Peace, Protest and Liberation

featuring music born of revolution:
the fight for GLBT rights, the labor movement, the civil rights movement,
the fight against apartheid, Vietnam protests, and more.

A lively program of pop, folk, and traditional music,
the show will also feature songs from Broadway in the spirit of protest,
including pieces from "Les Miserables" and "Wicked."
Join us for a night of powerful music that celebrates the spirit of liberation!

Below you'll find information about when and where we'll be performing. You can purchase tickets through me at $15 for adults and $12 for students, seniors, and youth ages 12-18. The show is free for kids 11 and under. We've also got a group rate of $12 per person for 10 or more people.

You can also purchase tickets for the show online:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/11347

Dates and Times
Seattle Unity Church
200 8th Ave N, Seattle
5/12/07, 7:30 PM
5/20/07, 3:00 PM

Capital Playhouse
612 4th Ave E, Olympia
6/16/07, 7:30 PM
$15 suggested donation

For more information about the chorus, go to http://www.slgc.org

Hope to see you at the show!

Today was our second performance for this concert cycle and I think it went off much better than the first. The chorus sounded wonderful, strong and confident, like real pros. We had an enormous sound, really robust, and performed both pieces (Vivaldi's "Gloria in D" and Bernstein's "Chichester Psalms") better than we ever have.

Our guest artist, Gina Sala, was really quite remarkable. I didn't quite know what to expect because I'd never heard of her before our Artistic Director announced she would be joining us for the show. She performed 6 or 7 chants from different spiritual traditions—Sikh, African, Indian, Buddhist—and had the audience on its feet and chanting with her before long. I enjoyed her portion of the show a great deal, and was delighted to be asked to present her with flowers at the end of the performance.

I was also delighted to discover that varina8, butterflydrming and L had come to the show. It's so nice to discover that friends were in the audience. I love to be able to share this sort of thing with friends. Makes it feel like all the work we've done over the last months was worth it and then some.

We had no after-party; there will be a cast party on Tuesday night, but I admit I felt a lack. I felt so good about this performance, I wanted to celebrate a little. I was also tired, though, and so came home and just relaxed.

I'm glad to have done this music. It was hard work, quite challenging, but it's good to know that I'm capable of performing such sophisticated and demanding stuff. Wikipedia says of the Chichester Psalms, "The Psalms and the first movement in particular are noted among performers for their musical difficulty..." and it's true. Bernstein has his choristers singing at full volume at the top of their ranges immediately and in odd tonal juxtaposition to each other. When I first heard this piece, I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but as we worked on it, it really grew on me. Some of the passages are quite beautiful.

All in all, it was ultimately a satisfying season, even with its bumps and trip-ups along the way. Well worth doing, and I'm glad that some of my circle got to hear us.

Haven't written much about chorus this season with the exception of posting concert information recently; I admit that my mind has been on other things. Here we are, though, on the day of our first concert of the season, and so I want to post a little about the last day or so.

Last night was what was supposed to be the chorus tech rehearsal for tonight's concert. Several problems cropped up. The tech guy that the church was contracted to supply didn't show. The pipe organ we're to use was locked. Our guest artist, therefore, couldn't do her sound check and neither could we. We eventually got the organ open and still had a productive evening, rehearsing with our musicians for the first time and getting used to the space. It's a little nerve-wracking, going into the show without knowing what the amplification situation may be tonight. We can only wait and see, I suppose.

We'll be singing at Seattle's First Baptist Church which is a historic old building and just beautiful. I lived in Capitol Hill (where the church is located) for two years and have lived in Seattle nearly 13; I never knew this church existed until it was chosen as our concert venue. Built in the late 1800s, it feels timeless. Through the arches at the top of the room, you can see the pipe organ's pipes. The instrument fills the room with sound, and I'm told that even though our chorus is small, our sound balanced out with the organ very well.

Though I enjoy singing the "Gloria," singing "Chichester Psalms"* accompanied by the organ and the harp for the first time was thrilling. aprivatefox and I, as two-thirds of the Jews in the chorus, had a moment together of hand holding and just sort of grooving out on singing this magnificent piece of music with those instruments and those acoustics. I haven't been very excited about this show, but now I'm starting to feel the kick I get out of performing. We sounded good last night; we sounded ready.

Our musicians are pretty serious players. Our organist is Assistant Professor of Music and serves as University Organist at Pacific Lutheran University, and has performed all over the world. Our harpist is principle harpist with the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra and appears regularly with the Seattle Symphony and Seattle Opera orchestras. From their descriptions, they sound intimidating, but they are both charming gentlemen, very approachable, and played beautifully. I believe we'll live up to the gifts they brings as musicians. "Chichester Psalms" requires us to use a boy soloist for the second movement, and our director found one with a sweet, clear, beautiful voice.

The program booklets (created by Yours Truly) look quite fine, if I do say so myself.

I'm feeling pretty good about all this. I think tonight should go well.

* "Chichester Psalms" by Leonard Bernstein (of "West Side Story" fame) is a setting of several psalms in Hebrew, one of the few major choral presentations of Jewish material, and a very complex and occasionally experimental piece. We've worked especially hard on this and when I've been able to focus, have found it hugely satisfying to work on.

Trying to dream up the end of a story might not be conducive to a good night's sleep
I've dug out a couple of short stories that I've been letting sit, and worked on one of them for quite some time last night. After some revision, I decided that I was going to sleep on one particular problem I was having trouble untangling. This story involves someone being shot at the beginning; the issue I've been dealing with is how to orchestrate the end. I just haven't been satisfied with it. But what did I dream about last night? I was walking across a parking lot and saw a child playing behind a parked car. As I walked closer, I saw a woman slumped over the steering wheel. The passenger window had been blown out, and the closer I drew, I realized that the woman had shot herself (with all the gory detail such an image might entail). The child was hers (boy? girl? I don't remember) and was trying to figure out, via the game being played, what had happen. Yeah, that woke me up at 6:30 this morning. There was no more sleep after that.

I neglected to mention Boxing Day
Spent Boxing Day with markbourne, E, ironymaiden and C having a lovely dinner, watching the latest Torchwood episode (Quite fine, but my goodness, Gwen's screwing up her life, isn't she? And Owen? Oh dear. Trouble's brewing for the season finale) and seeing Doctor Who: The Runaway Bride (what fun! Poor emo Doctor, but what a perfectly delicious villain!). Lovely, lovely, lovely.

I neglected to mention the tiaras
Dinner last night was with The Belltown Belles. butterflydrming presented us all with rhinestone-encrusted tiaras, which we proceeded to wear through a rather bad Mexican dinner. But the company was fine, as ever.

Our long cable nightmare is over
Three hours after I called City of Seattle, service was restored to the building. Will the wonders never cease? And the reporter wrote me back and told me he was going to be sure that the Seattle Times publishes a clarification with regard to whom one should complain about cable service.

All SLGC all the time
When I wasn't hunting down solutions to the Great Cable Blackout of 2006, I spent the rest of the day working on publicity stuff for SLGC, trying to make sure we had an advertising slot at Seattle Weekly for the next three weeks, figuring out how it should be paid for, and trying to get an ad designed. ladyjestocost came to my rescue in the end, God bless her, so I'll be zipping out to West Seattle tomorrow morning to finalize the ad and get it off to the Weekly. Then I have to get notices to a number off other publications (might do some of that tonight; I so want this out of my hair).

Dinner with BC
Had dinner with BC tonight at Charlie's in Capitol Hill. Still the best place in town to get a quality steak for under $20, and the mud pie is to die for. We stopped at Half-Price Books afterwards (always a mistake) and I came away with three books plus a fourth for a gift. Oh dear.