Next week I'll be singing (some) silly Christmas songs at the Annual General Meeting of the International Women's Association of Hannover. Anne Pehrisch, an American and local pianist/piano teacher, will be accompanying me. It was her idea to do fun Christmas Songs, rather than the tired, old, staid Christmas songs. I was all for it. Actually, it will be a mix of things, and the program isn't long. Here's the run-down:
*Music for a While, Henry Purcell (the one serious song)
*A Christmas Carol, Tom Lehrer (go here for a great recording of Lehrer doing this one)
*Mrs Hooligan's Christmas Cake, trad. Irish
*The Gloucester Wassail, trad. English carol - but a drinking song!
If we get the chance we'll do an encore of Aaron Copland's Simple Gifts. Which is just a gorgeous song.
I'm looking forward to it, and I hope that it'll perhaps garner me a few more, more lucrative gigs.
Working with Anne has been a joy and we are planning to do a song recital in the Spring. I'm excited, and a little nervous. I haven't done a recital per se since my exit recital in Bremen in 1996! But they don't make you much money. It'll be great because there are so many great songs, that you never get to do after you graduate from conservatory!
...
Showing posts with label Henry Purcell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Henry Purcell. Show all posts
Friday, December 05, 2008
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Audition!
Sorry, this post is very late. I forgot I never finished it or posted it!
So, I had my first audition in years the other day. I sang for 5 or 6 church musicians around Hannover. It was the strangest audition.
When I first arrived in Hannover I heard that there had just been one of these Audition-for-everyone-at-once sort of events, and that I'd missed it. I called the office that organizes it to get the names of the musicians so I could contact them and audition for them personally. But no, the woman wouldn't give me that info! It's a German thing - Data privacy, dontcha know? Anyway, she put me on the list for the next one, which was on Tuesday.
I got a letter and a form to fill out about 6 weeks ago. In the letter it stated that they had had so many applicants that they could only allot each of us 6 minutes. Six Minutes?!? The next requirement was that we should sing 2 pieces. One from the standard baroque sacred music repertoire (ie an aria from a Bach Cantata or Oratorio). I'm sorry, but there isn't a single aria that is less than 5 minutes! That leaves 1 minute for the 2nd song. At best. Sigh.
In the end I chose to sing "Ich will Dir mein Herze schenken" from the St. Matthew Passion by Bach, which is a da capo aria, meaning I could skip the repeat of the A section, making it about 3 minutes long. It's relatively fast, has lots of sixteenth notes, shows a good range and has a few endless phrases which Bach is famous for, which I can do well. As my second piece I chose something contrasting, slow with long lilting phrases: Evening Hymn by Henry Purcell. The song is very long, but I figured if they didn't want to hear the rest they could stop me.
They didn't. Which I'm glad of. They were pretty stone-faced throughout my singing, but then when I thanked them and offered them my Curriculum Vitae or resume, they all smiled and seemed interested.
I was the first one on for the day, and I think they were still pretty unorganized (one of the musicians was late and came in during the Bach), so I didn't get any information as to when or if I might hear anything official.
I'm still waiting. I hope that's not a bad sign. They've probably got singers lined up through Easter at least and so I don't really expect to hear about specific jobs until after Christmas, but it would be nice to get feed back.
We'll see!
So, I had my first audition in years the other day. I sang for 5 or 6 church musicians around Hannover. It was the strangest audition.
When I first arrived in Hannover I heard that there had just been one of these Audition-for-everyone-at-once sort of events, and that I'd missed it. I called the office that organizes it to get the names of the musicians so I could contact them and audition for them personally. But no, the woman wouldn't give me that info! It's a German thing - Data privacy, dontcha know? Anyway, she put me on the list for the next one, which was on Tuesday.
I got a letter and a form to fill out about 6 weeks ago. In the letter it stated that they had had so many applicants that they could only allot each of us 6 minutes. Six Minutes?!? The next requirement was that we should sing 2 pieces. One from the standard baroque sacred music repertoire (ie an aria from a Bach Cantata or Oratorio). I'm sorry, but there isn't a single aria that is less than 5 minutes! That leaves 1 minute for the 2nd song. At best. Sigh.
In the end I chose to sing "Ich will Dir mein Herze schenken" from the St. Matthew Passion by Bach, which is a da capo aria, meaning I could skip the repeat of the A section, making it about 3 minutes long. It's relatively fast, has lots of sixteenth notes, shows a good range and has a few endless phrases which Bach is famous for, which I can do well. As my second piece I chose something contrasting, slow with long lilting phrases: Evening Hymn by Henry Purcell. The song is very long, but I figured if they didn't want to hear the rest they could stop me.
They didn't. Which I'm glad of. They were pretty stone-faced throughout my singing, but then when I thanked them and offered them my Curriculum Vitae or resume, they all smiled and seemed interested.
I was the first one on for the day, and I think they were still pretty unorganized (one of the musicians was late and came in during the Bach), so I didn't get any information as to when or if I might hear anything official.
I'm still waiting. I hope that's not a bad sign. They've probably got singers lined up through Easter at least and so I don't really expect to hear about specific jobs until after Christmas, but it would be nice to get feed back.
We'll see!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)