D-Day

Well today was the day. After the final three hour rehearsal at Mile One Centre we were as ready as we were ever going to be.



The setting was overwhelming, with 1,200 voices from the adult and children's massed choirs arrayed at the end of the arena overlooking the stage where the Newfoundland Symphony was seated. They obviously employ an excellent sound crew since they were able to mike the string section so that the choirs could hear them on a monitor. The downside is that we weren't able to hear Rajaton very well because their sound was, as it should be, projected towards the audience.



The tympani play a crucial role in the first movement of "Dona Nobis Pacem". Fortunately, there was no problem hearing them.



The concert began with the fanfare from Aida (without elephants) and a procession of flags representing the provinces and countries of participating choirs. Our own Maggie was selected to carry the British Columbia flag.

That was followed by an amazing set from the Festival 500 Youth Choir. They had their entire repertoire memorized, including pieces in Latin and Finnish, and performed most of it "a cappella".



They were followed by the Indonesian Children's Choir who performed a couple of pieces, including one called informally "The Dance of a Thousand Hands". It features all kinds of elaborate hand and body movements, including a final section in which girls kneel on the stage, arranged alternately by the colour of their costumes. They proceed to do more hand movements, above, in front and behind them, coupled with movements that have half the group squatting while the other half rises to their knees. Then the latter rock back to a squat while the other half move up to their knees. This movement is repeated several times. One false move and someone could lose an eye.

The adult choir then got to perform "Dona Nobis Pacem." All the work we did to learn the piece seemed worthwhile when we were able to perform it with a full orchestra and outstanding soprano and tenor soloists. The soprano, Gunnel Sjoberg, is the wife of our conductor, Fred Sjoberg. She also led some of the warmups during our daily rehearsals. Unfortunately, whoever was in charge of lighting obviously hadn't attended the dress rehearsal. When the soloists sang, the lighting crew blacked out the choir making it impossible to see the music and, thus, a couple of the entrances when the chorus was supposed to come in. Luckily, most of us had memorized the most important one and were able to get started on cue and carried on until the lights were on us once again.



Next the combined youth and adult choirs performed Bob Chilcott's "The Seeds of Stars" to considerable applause.


The grand finale of the Grand Finale Concert, was, of course, the set by Rajaton. One would be forgiven for suspecting that Rajaton was invited to entice as large a crowd as possible to hear us sing the classical repertoire.
Their Abba selections brought down the house, especially when 1,200 voices joined in on the choruses for Chiquitita and Mama Mia.




Now our tour is over and EnChor will disperse for the summer. This blog will resume in the Fall.

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Location:St. John's

D-Day Minus 1

The day began with a rendezvous at the top of Signal Hill for a group photo. The sky was overcast, but the wind wasn't too bad and there was no rain. Taking a casual photo of 42 people in this setting is not easy, but Chris did a splendid job.








In gratitude for all she did to get us here, Diane was presented with a genuine Grenfell coat by the group, which she donned immediately to add to the layers she already had on.






Then it was down to serious business. Rajaton had invited the Massed Adult and Children's choirs to sing the refrains to "Chiquitita" and "Mama Mia" at the Grand Finale on Wednesday so some rehearsal was necessary. As usual they made working with then a delightful experience--and treated us to another of their songs at the end. They reprised the first song they performed in Newfoundland, exactly 10 years ago, a lovely piece sung in Finnish.






Then we boarded buses to "Mile One Stadium", the local hockey arena that serves as the venue for large concerts. It holds around 8,000 people. The combined choirs number 1,200 so seating them was a major logistical effort.






This was our first opportunity to rehearse with the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra, and for our conductor to see how we sounded in such a place. After three hours we did OK, but will still need the final two hour rehearsal tomorrow afternoon before the concert.






After such a long work day, we needed a break that was thoughtfully provided by the Newfoundland Symphony Philharmonic Choir. They hosted us to a traditional lobster boil. We all agreed it was the best lobster we had tasted since arriving in St. John's. When two choirs get together, the urge to sing is irresistible, so we gave in and entertained each other with some of our favorites.






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Newfie Lingo

Here is some local lingo Deborah and Bob picked up from a taxi driver.

WHEN FISHERMEN MEET
"Hiyamac"
"Lobuddy"
"Binearlong?"
"Coplours"
"Cetchanenny?"
"Goddafew"
"Kindarthay?"
"Muddenbron"
"Ennysizetoom?"
"Cuplapowns"
"Hittinhard?"
"Sordalike"
"Wahchoozin?"
"Gobbawurms"
"Fishanonaboddum?"
"Rydononaboddum"
"Whatchadrinkin?"
"Screachenpinki"
"Igoddago"
"Tubad"
"Seeyaroun"
"Yeahtakideezy"
"Gu luk"



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Location:St. John's

D-Day -2

Monday is D-Day minus 2. D is for "Dona" as in "Dona Nobis Pacem," the epic Vaughan Williams' composition that we will perform as part of the adult massed choir on Wednesday evening. After a 90 minute movement-by-movement rehearsal, we finally performed the whole thing. Our Conductor, Fred Sjoberg, seemed reasonably pleased given that we have only two more rehearsals, a rehearsal at the venue--the Mile One Centre [a huge local arena], and the final dress rehearsal on Wednesday afternoon with the Newfoundland Symphony. Fred faces the daunting task of directing the 1,000 voice choir as well as the Orchestra. However, he has obviously done this kind of thing before.

We will also debut Bob Chilcott's "Seeds of Stars," a song he composed especially for the Festival. Having heard the massed choir sing it for the first time, he also seemed optimistic.

Today was the final tuneup for the "Come Solo Choir", which performed this evening at the Arts and Cultural Centre, the premiere concert venue. Four EnChor spouses (Lorna, Marion, Linda and Wesley) took part. The photo below shows them at the final rehearsal. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to take photos during the concert, despite the fact that the place was crawling with official Festival shutterbugs. Perhaps we will get a chance to see some of the images they shot.








The Come Solo Choir put in a great performance, made even more remarkable give the fact that this is a "pickup" Choir that rehearsed for 1.5 hours on each of four days before performing. Some didn't even get the music until less than a month before the Festival.



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Breakout Day

Sunday was a day of rest for EnChor and most of the other choirs. (Some participated in church services across the city.) Others spent time with friends and relatives or did some sightseeing. One hardy crew set out in a van, braving near gale force winds at times, to travel the Irish Loop, the southern arm of the Avalon Peninsula leading to Cape Race and back up to St. John's through such communities as Bay Bulls, Witless, Ferryland, Fermeuse and Cappahayden.
















EnChor alto, Susan, spent some time with relatives, including her Aunt Georgina from Arnold's Cove, who had never heard the song "Labrador Rug." However, when Susan began to sing, her aunt picked up on the lyrics immediately. "I used to do that", she declared and proceeded to recall happy memories that had been tucked away for decades.


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Loomer Workshop Day

After another morning of intensive rehearsal, Dona Nobis Pacem is getting a lot nearer to being performance ready. Once again our conductor, Fred Sjoberg, did a great job getting us to perfect several passages with his usual good humour. He obviously enjoys rehearsals and confessed to us this morning that he is known as a "rehearsalholic".

Our lunch stop followed. This involved getting to the lobby of the Arts and Cultural Centre to pick up our brown bags that had been prepared by the Festival people. Our EnChor caterers, Sandra and Elaine, did another excellent job handing out the lunches and getting the bags prepared for those with special dietary requirements to the right people.


The EnChor workshop came next. The attendance was rather disappointing, probably because it was scheduled over the usual lunch hour. However, those who did attend were treated to an another excellent talk by Diane who spoke about the challenges and benefits of starting a seniors' choir and how to maintain it.



Our final concert took us to Mary Queen of Peace Church, a brand new venue. We sang to a small but responsive audience and debuted Chilcott's "The Lily and the Rose." Our performance earned us a standing ovation, which is always nice.

We boarded the bus to return to the University, but convinced the driver to take us to our group dinner downtown instead. Arriving well ahead of our reservation time, several of us took the opportunity to be "screeched" at Trader John's, a local pub. This is a time-honoured ritual used to induct mainlanders into the Newfoundland culture. The central features of the ceremony require the rapid downing of a shot of "screech" (40 proof rum), followed by kissing of the cod. Given that this was Trapper John's (and not Fisherman John's) and that cod are scarce in these parts a stuffed puffin took its place. Those who took part in the ceremony were given a special certificate attesting to this rite of passage.







Dinner at the K-Cafe was another highlight. We booked the entire restaurant for the group and enjoyed a menu featuring mainly seafood, including fresh lobster. The staff did an amazing job feeding all 50 of us in time for our departure for the evening's concert. In return we serenaded them with "Fogarty's Cove", "Sarah" and "The Royal Hudson."







Tomorrow is our (well-deserved) "breakout day" when we will have no Festival-related activities. However, most of us have tickets for the evening's concert featuring Rajaton and the Indonesian Children's Choir.

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Chilcott Workshop Day

Another beautiful day in St. John's. However, faithful EnChorites willing gave up the sunshine to spend two hours in rehearsal for the Massed Adult Choir. The rehearsals are actually a treat. Fred Sjoberg from Sweden, who is conducting the Massed Adult Choir as well as the Come Solo Choir [EnChor spouses Wesley, Lorna, Linda and Marion are members] is a delight to work with. He is energetic, charismatic, humorous and obviously a very talented choral director. He makes the occasional lapse in English that puts us in stitches, but don't faze him. He is willing to laugh at himself. During the first rehearsal yesterday, he referred to "blow buggles, blow" in the opening chorus of the second movement of Dona Nobis Pacem. Today's howler, related to the "snorting horses" in the fifth movement. He was rehearsing the soprano and alto parts and made reference to "snorting females".

The guys (and it is a guy writing this blog) are happy to have Doug Dunsmore, one of the Festival's artistic directors and a prof at Memorial University, lead the sectionals for tenors and basses. He is an incredibly friendly and approachable man who, nevertheless, has a keen ear and tolerates no sloppiness. Unfortunately, the "rehearsal room" for the male singers is an almost airless room with insufficient seating for the 150 or so men who have to crowd in. Were it not for Doug's personality, there might be some grumbling.

Most of us attended at least two workshops today. Larry Nickel, representing Cypress Choral Music, led a workshop that involved singing through a dozen or so pieces scored SATB that the company has on offer. There were some beautiful arrangements that I am sure Diane will be looking at for EnChor. EnChor made up most of the participants so we were able to give Larry a boost--especially when we "sight read" pieces like "Skye Boat Song" and "Four Strong Winds" that we know well.

The second workshop saw Bob Chilcott put EnChor through its paces on his "The Lily and the Rose". We were rather chuffed after Bob had us sing through the piece, which we had been learning under Diane's direction, that he focused on nuances, many of which only the composer would be sensitive to, as we polished the piece. He also gave us a mini lecture on the medieval poetry underlying the lyrics, which, since there is no consensus on the allusions they contain, added to its mystery. Your blogger got a great shot of Diane and Bob after the workshop.




Bob is Composer in Residence for the Festival so we are also learning his "Seeds of Stars" for the grand finale. This piece is an original composition for the Festival. We look forward to hearing him tell us about how it came about.


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Location:St. John's