Report: Raggio di Sol - Concert "Colors of Life"/"Farben des Lebens"

Raggio di Sol gave a concert on Pentecost Monday (as it's called here). The first one since I joined the group. The concert went well but not without more than it's fair share of drama before-hand. One of our female singers, and alto, got into a fairly serious bicycle accident after our penultimate regular rehearsal. She spend several days in the hospital, underwent surgery on her arm and suffered from a mild concussion. It was clear that she wasn't going to be able to perform, so Alfredo asked one of the singers who's supplementing the ensemble in September's big benefit concert to fill in. As fate would have it, she came down with the flu and had no voice, so had to cancel at the last minute. Such it is with singers. You just can't sing if you have some infection in the upper airways!

So, what were we to do? Some of the pieces we couldn't shuffle the rest of us around to fill in the gab, so they got axed, others we could. This is the program we were left with:

Pierrre Attaignant (1530) - Tourdion
Thoinot Arbeau - Pavane
Michael Praetorius (1571 - 1621) - Kyrie XXII
- Gloria XVII
G. P. da Palestrina (1525 - 1594) - Sicut cervus
Orlando di Lasso (1532 - 1594) - Lebensregel
Mateo Flecha? (1481 - 1553) - Riu, riu chiu

Thomas Morley (1558 - 1603) - Hard by a Crystal Fountain
Heinrich Schütz (1585 - 1672) - Verleih' uns Frieden
Claudio Monteverdi (1567 - 1643) - Sfogava con le stelle
- Anima mia perdona
- Che se tu se'il cor mio
- Luci serene e chiare

We had to leave off pieces by Thomas Tallis, Giovanni Gastoldi, Melchior Franck and Andreas Hammerschmidt. A real pity, but hopefully we be able to perform them at a later date.

I think despite the truncated offerings, that the concert was well received. The church was not full, by any stretch of the imagination, but neither was it empty which was positive, given that it was the end of a long holiday weekend when most people go away. Our hard work trying to memorize the Monteverdi paid off for the most part. They were emotive and pliant which is what they need. Even if we couldn't do them memorized because Ingo was stepping in for Irma.

I was especially pleased to see a couple of my voice students (and parents) there as well as a neighbor and some colleagues of Magnus'.

Upcoming singing events include 2 concerts in Poland singing Hildegard von Bingen with my good friend Allegra Silbiger's group, the benefit concert with Raggio di Sol and more Hildegard in Dillenburg. Hopefully, some more performances will be added before the end of the year.

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