Choir


I just finished with a Saturday morning choir rehearsal for our Christmas program tomorrow. It was “an experience” lets say. The whole situation is strange, because the ward music director decided she wanted to create the Christmas program this year, so she selected all the songs, wrote the program, and arranged for solos. Which is great, right, I didn’t have to do it, and she wanted to. However, when it gets down to the end, I’m the one responsible. If it was my program I would make a few cuts, and probably in the beginning it wouldn’t have been nearly as long. It is likely going to be an 50min to hour long program. And due to a misunderstanding in the Bishopric they also arranged for a high council member to speak along with his accompanying speaker. Needless to say, sacrament meeting might be 2 hours long tomorrow! Our pianist is a wonderful woman, she is far from a virtuoso but she tries hard and practices, but due to her need to always look at the music, she doesn’t watch me. Which makes entrances, fermatas, and retards very difficult! She recently through out her back and wasn’t able to sit up for a month or so, so many of the songs are new for her, and as a result there are some wrong rhythms often at crucial places- what does a conductor do? You can’t exactly just leave the pianist behind. We have one piece with flute. Today was our first run through, and the flute was terribly off- so noticeable that everyone knew. Several people commented that it was sharp or flat, but I figured it was better to just play through it. It was a rough couple of minutes but we got through it. I think in the end the program is going to be really nice. I’m grateful for an opportunity to see rehearsals from a conductors view point, because hopefully I will be more sympathetic in the future.


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