he made the stars also
Apr. 5th, 2024 12:39Bay Area folks, especially in San Francisco: come hear me and other Oakland Symphony Choir members join Pacific Edge Voices tomorrow for their Sound Garden of Love concert! Saturday, April 6, 7:30 pm at St. Mark's Lutheran. (Geary + Grant, right on the 38, I don't know the bike parking situation though.) Yes, this is the one where we'll be performing Hymn of Acxiom, about which I have obviously been squeeing, although it has been a workout for both my soprano brain, unaccustomed to being "not the melody or ornamental descant?!?" for an extended period, and my soprano body, looking askance at the Ab3 on our part solidly in alto-tenor range.
And we finally got the scores for our May concert (Friday, May 17, 8 pm at the Paramount): we'll be doing Aaron Copland's Canticle of Freedom (an MIT Chorus and Orchestra commission back in the day, Cambervillains! Pisses me off even more what's happening with the San Francisco Symphony right now and that factored into Esa-Pekka Salonen's decision to not renew his contract when it expires after next season, austerity towards musical innovation when your board is sitting on 10 years of operational budget in your endowment). I loved when I did his In the Beginning with Chorus Pro Musica back in the day; excited to be singing more Copland now.
(And of course I just earwormed myself with let there be LIGHTS in the firmament of the HEAVENS to divide the DAY from the NIGHT, and let them be for SIGNS and for SEASONS and for DAYS and YEARS; let there be LIGHTS in the firmament of the HEAVENS to give LIGHT upon the EARTH ...)
( In the Beginning score video )
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A delightful thing![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hyounpark and I did recently: helped introduce several thousand elementary schoolkids to the joys of classical music. The Oakland Symphony has an annual Young People's Concert, where local K-8 kids come downtown to the Paramount Theatre and learn about the various kinds of instruments, what they sound like, how different combinations of sounds create different emotional landscapes, etc. So Sarah pulled us both aside after rehearsal one night and asked if we'd be willing to be Robins to host Omari Tau's Batman - provide harmonies, demonstrate some easy dance moves (wait, what), and get kids excited about classical music. OBVIOUSLY we would :D
It was both a little terrifying ("I am the only person on my part for 55 minutes, and I have to do choreo, and hold a mic, what?!") and a total blast. Omari had clearly done this before, and he had a voice and tenor straight out of Disney. I told Hyoun afterwards that I felt like we'd just walked onto a Nickelodeon set somewhere. Engaging an audience that securely? Dayumn, that is impressive talent and hard work. But the best part, honestly, was getting to see all of the kids' reactions. Laughing and gasping at various points, getting to get up and dance out their wiggles for Oye, teaching them the words and notes for the call and response of We Shall Not Be Moved. Even the complex meter of Ram Tori Maya reminded me that when Hyoun and I were kids, we were being taught about such time signature shenanigans thanks to Sesame Street and the Pointer Sisters.
( we may have possibly spent an hour watching this 15-minute video analyzing The Pinball Song because we are total music nerds )
Afterwards, we came out the stage door and walked towards BART, and as we passed all the schoolkids waiting to get on their buses, we were the celebrities of the hour. "LOOK IT'S THE SINGERS!!!" Me to Hyoun: "Okay, this is the perfect level of 'fame' for me, in a better world and were I slightly more of an extrovert, you know I'd be going back to school to become a music teacher." (I know. We got to play the hero-of-the-moment versions, not the in-the-trenches day-in-day-out versions. Teachers are amazing and their actual heroism deserves better recognition.)
The kids riding with us on BART were utterly thrilled, kept bursting into snippets of the songs we'd been teaching them/performing for them, pointing and waving, "look, they're real! They ride the train just like us!" We're not Billy Joel, hahaha, but yes, we appreciate our urban conveniences, getting to take us on cool field trips like this :)
And yet I can't help but think, all kids should be getting to do this. Taking the subway from their schools to downtown, sitting in a beautiful theatre while grown-up musicians get to tell them about the things they love. Taking the subway back from downtown to their schools, sharing space with the musicans who just performed for them, getting to ask them questions. Our modern fucking world.
And we finally got the scores for our May concert (Friday, May 17, 8 pm at the Paramount): we'll be doing Aaron Copland's Canticle of Freedom (an MIT Chorus and Orchestra commission back in the day, Cambervillains! Pisses me off even more what's happening with the San Francisco Symphony right now and that factored into Esa-Pekka Salonen's decision to not renew his contract when it expires after next season, austerity towards musical innovation when your board is sitting on 10 years of operational budget in your endowment). I loved when I did his In the Beginning with Chorus Pro Musica back in the day; excited to be singing more Copland now.
(And of course I just earwormed myself with let there be LIGHTS in the firmament of the HEAVENS to divide the DAY from the NIGHT, and let them be for SIGNS and for SEASONS and for DAYS and YEARS; let there be LIGHTS in the firmament of the HEAVENS to give LIGHT upon the EARTH ...)
( In the Beginning score video )
*
A delightful thing
hyounpark and I did recently: helped introduce several thousand elementary schoolkids to the joys of classical music. The Oakland Symphony has an annual Young People's Concert, where local K-8 kids come downtown to the Paramount Theatre and learn about the various kinds of instruments, what they sound like, how different combinations of sounds create different emotional landscapes, etc. So Sarah pulled us both aside after rehearsal one night and asked if we'd be willing to be Robins to host Omari Tau's Batman - provide harmonies, demonstrate some easy dance moves (wait, what), and get kids excited about classical music. OBVIOUSLY we would :DIt was both a little terrifying ("I am the only person on my part for 55 minutes, and I have to do choreo, and hold a mic, what?!") and a total blast. Omari had clearly done this before, and he had a voice and tenor straight out of Disney. I told Hyoun afterwards that I felt like we'd just walked onto a Nickelodeon set somewhere. Engaging an audience that securely? Dayumn, that is impressive talent and hard work. But the best part, honestly, was getting to see all of the kids' reactions. Laughing and gasping at various points, getting to get up and dance out their wiggles for Oye, teaching them the words and notes for the call and response of We Shall Not Be Moved. Even the complex meter of Ram Tori Maya reminded me that when Hyoun and I were kids, we were being taught about such time signature shenanigans thanks to Sesame Street and the Pointer Sisters.
( we may have possibly spent an hour watching this 15-minute video analyzing The Pinball Song because we are total music nerds )
Afterwards, we came out the stage door and walked towards BART, and as we passed all the schoolkids waiting to get on their buses, we were the celebrities of the hour. "LOOK IT'S THE SINGERS!!!" Me to Hyoun: "Okay, this is the perfect level of 'fame' for me, in a better world and were I slightly more of an extrovert, you know I'd be going back to school to become a music teacher." (I know. We got to play the hero-of-the-moment versions, not the in-the-trenches day-in-day-out versions. Teachers are amazing and their actual heroism deserves better recognition.)
The kids riding with us on BART were utterly thrilled, kept bursting into snippets of the songs we'd been teaching them/performing for them, pointing and waving, "look, they're real! They ride the train just like us!" We're not Billy Joel, hahaha, but yes, we appreciate our urban conveniences, getting to take us on cool field trips like this :)
And yet I can't help but think, all kids should be getting to do this. Taking the subway from their schools to downtown, sitting in a beautiful theatre while grown-up musicians get to tell them about the things they love. Taking the subway back from downtown to their schools, sharing space with the musicans who just performed for them, getting to ask them questions. Our modern fucking world.
Tags:
- choir: cabaniss come to play,
- choir: copland canticle of freedom,
- choir: esmail ram tori maya,
- choir: papoulis oye,
- choir: teng the hymn of acxiom,
- choir: we shall not be moved,
- choir: young people's concerts,
- concerts: paramount theatre,
- concerts: st. mark's lutheran church,
- the bear and bunny show,
- urbanism: transit
