Category: Music
Our church choir director calls the phenomenon “tune bondage.” It’s a state of complete captivity to the music in your head. Ever get a song stuck in there? I do. All the time. Here, I catalog the bands I’m listening to, concerts I’m attending, and our choir updates.
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pop-up choir
About a week ago, I got to participate in a cool choir event, called a “pop-up”. It was a single evening impromptu choir of people from the community, most of whom didn’t know each other. It was hosted by Colorado Springs Youth Choir, a new organization for high school students. The results were really great.…
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Sacred Bluegrass
Is this a mashup made in heaven? I think it was. Sarah and Iris and I all went to this concert a few weeks ago titled, “The World Beloved: A Bluegrass Mass” with text by Marisha Chamberlain and music by Carol Barnett. The Colorado Springs Chorale’s Chamber Singers performed the piece . The idea is…
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musical aphasia
The similarities of music to language are very striking. While I fancy myself fluent in the latter (English, that is), I’m still very much a novice in the former.
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I got the mule skinner blues
Sarah and I just returned from a trip to Dolores to see her dad and stepmom. We had a great time.
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Lux Aeterna
Sarah and I just came back from our Maundy Thursday service. Our choir sang the Rutter Requiem. It was my first time and I’ll never forget it. Here is the final movement, Lux Aeterna. Here are the lyrics. The soprano soloist (sung by our associate pastor) part is in English, while the choir is in…
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O great mystery
Last week our choir sang Morten Lauridsen’s composition of O Magnum Mysterium. To say it was moving puts it lightly. It was ethereal.
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Bernstein’s Mass
For my church choir’s annual Christmas concert two weeks ago, one of the solos was a piece from Bernstein’s Mass, titled “Hymn and Psalm: A Simple Song.” It’s a very modern sounding song, not at all like traditional requiem masses. At times, it was very dissonant and haunting, other times similar to big band Broadway. …
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Arcade Fire concert
Sarah and I went to the Arcade Fire concert at Red Rocks Amphitheater a few weeks ago. It was great!
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choir notes
I love singing in our choir. We’ve been singing some old spirituals and this morning we sang “The Battle Of Jericho”.
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Recap: Brahms Day 3
Rewind a week and a half to our Friday night performance of Brahms’ German Requiem. The concert hall wasn’t full, but there were still about 800 or so seats filled. The orchestra was assembled and emanating that wondrously cacophonic trill of tuning instruments. The choir had warmed up with scales, the last throat cleared. The…