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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Location:St. John's