What a rare experience this concert in Berlin was. The music was fabulous, except for copious amounts of annoying pflegm under my vocal chords my voice was in good form, the group of singers worked well and efficiently together and sounded amazing, the acoustics in the church were astounding and the occasion for the concert was very meaningful to me and a few of us singing.
This was the program:
*Alma Redemptoris Mater - Antiphon, anonymous (10th cent.)
*Motet- Anima mea liquefacta est/Deschendit in ortum meum/Alma - Montpellier Codex
*Eya, mater fidelium - Codex Las Huelgas
*O frondens virga - Hildegard von Bingen
*Motet- Ex illustri - Codex Las Huelgas
*O quam magnum miraculum - Hildegard von Bingen (with solos by yours truly)
*Ave, generosa - Hildegard von Bingen
*O vos imitatores - Hildegard von Bingen
*Motet- Ave,regina/Alma redemptoris mater/Alma - Codex Las Huelgas
*Eterni numinis - Codex Las Huelgas
*Spiritus sanctus - Hildegard von Bingen
*In exitu Israel - Psalm 113
*Quis dabit capiti meo - Codex Las Huelgas
*O monialis concio - Codex Las Huelgas
*Motet- Ave, virgo/Ave, gloriosa/Domino - Codex Las Huelgas
*Nunc gaudeant - Hildegard von Bingen
*O viridissima virga - Hildegard von Bingen (with solos by me)
*Motet- O Maria maris stella/O maria virgo davitica/Et veritate - Codex Las Huelgas
The singers were:
Amy Green (Student of Barbara Thornton's 1996-98/Elysium/Vox Nostra/Diadema),
Susanne Hammer (Diadema/Vox Nostra),
Ellen Hünigen (Vox Nostra),
Lucia Reichelt-Pahn (Sequentia 1996 - 1998),
Diane Severson (Sequentia 1997-99/Elysium),
Allegra Silbiger (Sequentia 1997-99/Elysium/Diadema/Vox Nostra),
Anja Simon (Diadema/Vox Nostra),
Susanne Wilsdorf (Vox Nostra/Diadema).
We had 4 rehearsals before the concert and there was no rehearsal where all 8 of us were present. In fact, I think the most we ever were at one rehearsal was 5. Allegra and I were the unifying factor. That said, as you can see from the list above Allegra, Amy and I have sung a lot together, and the others, save Lucia, also sing together a lot. I know Susanne from conservatory in Bremen and Allegra, Lucia, Amy and I all have extensive experience in the oral tradition that is borne of having worked with Barbara. (If you are wondering who Barbara Thornton is, see my previous post "Concert in Berlin" or google her!) So, even though we had never sung together as a group before, we all had extensive experience singing this type of music and singing together in part. Everything just fell into place and we created this powerful, lovely, unified sound. It was an amazing experience to feel Barbara's legacy live through us as singers. What a gift. I wish we had a recording of it.
The church was St.-Johannes-Evangelist in Berlin-Mitte. It's stuck on a little street off Oranienburger Strasse (Auguststrasse) with buildings plastered to each side. The interior is huge and cavernous and empty (they have exhibitions and concerts there only), built in a neo-romanesque style. The reverb lasted a full six seconds, but unlike the Speyer Cathedral the sound remains pure and doesn't swim. The text and the musical line remain pure and understandable. Incredible. We sang from various points in the church - mostly from in front of the altar, but also from the side and the rear balconies as well as from both sides at once (for the antiphonal psalm).
There were possible 40 people at the concert. Not a lot, but it was a very attentive audience (even the 10 year old was rapt!) and I'm just happy when the audience numbers more than the musicians on stage! It's a shame, but then we did it to honor Barbara's life and work. I think we achieved that and then some.
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Showing posts with label Elysium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elysium. Show all posts
Monday, November 10, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Junior Elysium member No. 4!
Noam Zev Spincemaille was born to Elysium member Anna Levenstein and her husband Pascal Spincemaille on March 12, 2008!!! I'm very excited to welcome another junior Elysium member (so far now we have 2 girls and 2 boys)! From the pictures it looks as though mother got through the ordeal OK. She looks a bit tired, but otherwise happy and serene!
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Nothing much
Frustratingly, I have nothing much exciting to write about here. Haven't been doing much singing here, unfortunately. However, I have been busy trying to get Elysium concerts and our recordings out to the public and things like that. There is, of course, a huge lag time involved in securing a concert in a series or at a festival. If I manage to get us performances here in the UK it won't be until 2009 most likely! Ugh! But look for our recordings to be available on OnClassical.com, an online distribution service similar to Magnatune. I'm still waiting to hear from those guys!
Good news is that I have a concert on the horizon! I'll most likely be performing Sad Hotel again in Heidelberg in November. Hopefully, we'll get a good recording out of it and I'll be able to put us up on MySpace. That might help things along on that front!
Also, I'm planning on attending Carol Baggott-Forte's voice seminar in Paris: www.lavoixliberee.org
Good news is that I have a concert on the horizon! I'll most likely be performing Sad Hotel again in Heidelberg in November. Hopefully, we'll get a good recording out of it and I'll be able to put us up on MySpace. That might help things along on that front!
Also, I'm planning on attending Carol Baggott-Forte's voice seminar in Paris: www.lavoixliberee.org
Friday, February 02, 2007
Elysium in High Gear
As per usual, a month before our performance in Oregon, we are moving into high gear and I'm getting upwards of 20 emails a day sometimes!! We've had a slight hiccup, but a good one. After Anna and I both booked our flights, we found out that Medford wants us to perform there after all! Anna had given up on them last summer when they didn't reply again after she proposed our fee. But she got an email asking if we were still planning on coming! They've accepted our fees and terms and although it's a little tight with rehearsals, we're going perform in Medford, Oregon, on Friday, March 2 giving a Question and Answer session afterwards. Now we just have to figure out how we are going to get there in good time and maximize the time we have for rehearsal.
More on that later!
More on that later!
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Post Christmas plans
I returned from 2+ weeks at home in Madison, Wisconsin and Bancroft, Iowa and am raring to go!
First off, I have a consultation/lesson next week with Niel Mackie who is the acting Chairman of the Voice Department at the Royal College of Music here in London. I'll sing 3 pieces for him and then we'll discuss what the best way forward is for me. Every singer should continue to work on their voice and have outside help to do it with. Neil Mackie was recommended to me by my colleague Margaret Peckham from Frankfurt. I also need advice and help regarding auditioning for and getting work here in England. And who knows? Perhaps I'll decide to go back to school and work on a Masters Degree (or whatever the equivalent is here!)!
Next, will be a performance by Elysium on March 4, 2007. We'll be performing in Salem, Oregon, USA at St. Paul's Episcopal Church. We'll begin with Evensong (encorporating lots of chant!) and continue with our program of medieval Italian songs, "Piety and Passion". For more information visit http://www.stpauloregon.org/music%20menu.htm . Have a look at Elysium's website: www.elysium-sings.net and our MySpace Music space: www.myspace.com/elysiumsings
After that will likely be a premier performance in Fort William, Scotland of the work "Endurance" by Paul Moxon. Have a little listen: www.myspace.com/pwmoxon
Elysium will be performing again in May, this time in Berlin. More details will be forth-coming so watch this space!
First off, I have a consultation/lesson next week with Niel Mackie who is the acting Chairman of the Voice Department at the Royal College of Music here in London. I'll sing 3 pieces for him and then we'll discuss what the best way forward is for me. Every singer should continue to work on their voice and have outside help to do it with. Neil Mackie was recommended to me by my colleague Margaret Peckham from Frankfurt. I also need advice and help regarding auditioning for and getting work here in England. And who knows? Perhaps I'll decide to go back to school and work on a Masters Degree (or whatever the equivalent is here!)!
Next, will be a performance by Elysium on March 4, 2007. We'll be performing in Salem, Oregon, USA at St. Paul's Episcopal Church. We'll begin with Evensong (encorporating lots of chant!) and continue with our program of medieval Italian songs, "Piety and Passion". For more information visit http://www.stpauloregon.org/music%20menu.htm . Have a look at Elysium's website: www.elysium-sings.net and our MySpace Music space: www.myspace.com/elysiumsings
After that will likely be a premier performance in Fort William, Scotland of the work "Endurance" by Paul Moxon. Have a little listen: www.myspace.com/pwmoxon
Elysium will be performing again in May, this time in Berlin. More details will be forth-coming so watch this space!
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Elysium in Ordo Virtutum
By some wonderful coincidence all the members of Elysium were hired to sing in a repeat production of Hildegard von Bingen's "Ordo Virtutum" with musical director Stefan Morent. Stage director Enrico Masseroli was also part of it as well as most of the singers that took part last time. 2 singers joined us, Rebecca Bain as Anima, who I've performed with before in Sequentia's production of OV and Katherine Ross, who I'd never met before, but who made a wonderful Humilitas. Amy was hired to replace one of the singers who couldn't do it and so it was like a big, happy family reunion! We performed as part of the concert series "Vocal music along the Romanesque Road" (Vokalmusik entlang der Romanischen Strasse) during the summer festival in Rhineland-Palatine (Kultursommer Rheinland-Pfalz). We were in a beautiful romanesque church in a place about as far out in the boondocks as you can get in western Germany - Offenbach-Hundheim. A tiny village where the shops are hardly ever open and almost never when we had time to go in them and which had only 3 restaurants. But it was a pleasant enough 4 days. We were busy anyway!
We managed to put the whole thing together after having last performed this version of it 4 years ago in San Diego. It was hard work, but the end result was pretty darn good, if I do say so myself! I think Enrico has an amazing eye for space and movement (not surprising since he's a dancer), but he prefers to do everything on the spot and try things out first. We didn't really have enough time to do that method justice, so it was a bit nerve wracking. I was doubly nervous - I don't know how it happened but I had a ton of spoken text which I had to deliver memorized (since it was staged). And that's not one of my fortes! However, by the grace of God, I didn't forget anything, and feel like I did a pretty good job! Magnus came to the performance and was moved. He thought that the staging was beautiful, using the space (around the altar) wonderfully. He likes Hildegard's music too.
After the concert, we took Anna with us and returned to Oftersheim (home). We flew to Italy the next day! More in another post.
We managed to put the whole thing together after having last performed this version of it 4 years ago in San Diego. It was hard work, but the end result was pretty darn good, if I do say so myself! I think Enrico has an amazing eye for space and movement (not surprising since he's a dancer), but he prefers to do everything on the spot and try things out first. We didn't really have enough time to do that method justice, so it was a bit nerve wracking. I was doubly nervous - I don't know how it happened but I had a ton of spoken text which I had to deliver memorized (since it was staged). And that's not one of my fortes! However, by the grace of God, I didn't forget anything, and feel like I did a pretty good job! Magnus came to the performance and was moved. He thought that the staging was beautiful, using the space (around the altar) wonderfully. He likes Hildegard's music too.
After the concert, we took Anna with us and returned to Oftersheim (home). We flew to Italy the next day! More in another post.
Cistercian Elysium
OK, now that my busy performing period is over I'm just as busy as I was before! Don't ask me what I'm doing - it doesn't seem like much. Teaching and travelling that's it basically.
However, I will attempt to catch up on the last few gigs and interesting things that have been happening lately.
Elysium had a concert in early September in Heiligengrabe again. (Allegra, Amy and I had performed there without Anna in May) We performed the same program but this time we had Anna with us, which is much better, plus the rest of us had done the program once already, so it was that much more together. We had a few days of rehearsals in which we integrated Anna and added a new piece. The concert was part of a bigger event this time - the opening of the museum on the convent premises. The church was full - full of politicians and cultural ambassadors. Before our performance there were 5 (!) speeches by various important people. It was nice to perform for a big audience but I could have lived without sitting in the back of the cold church for 45 minutes before beginning! Oh well. The performance went really well and I really enjoy that program. I think we might expand it into a full-length program for us. We performed with an organist in Heiligengrabe and only had to have about 30 minutes of music for ourselves.
After the performance there was a reception where we met several interesting people from various cultural offices. One man was particularly keen on having us record the program at the convent to sell there as a promotional thing for the convent. I'm not sure what's going on with that now, I hope it comes to fruition!
However, I will attempt to catch up on the last few gigs and interesting things that have been happening lately.
Elysium had a concert in early September in Heiligengrabe again. (Allegra, Amy and I had performed there without Anna in May) We performed the same program but this time we had Anna with us, which is much better, plus the rest of us had done the program once already, so it was that much more together. We had a few days of rehearsals in which we integrated Anna and added a new piece. The concert was part of a bigger event this time - the opening of the museum on the convent premises. The church was full - full of politicians and cultural ambassadors. Before our performance there were 5 (!) speeches by various important people. It was nice to perform for a big audience but I could have lived without sitting in the back of the cold church for 45 minutes before beginning! Oh well. The performance went really well and I really enjoy that program. I think we might expand it into a full-length program for us. We performed with an organist in Heiligengrabe and only had to have about 30 minutes of music for ourselves.
After the performance there was a reception where we met several interesting people from various cultural offices. One man was particularly keen on having us record the program at the convent to sell there as a promotional thing for the convent. I'm not sure what's going on with that now, I hope it comes to fruition!
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