Hello everyone,
WOW - we are going to have the best group this year!!!
I waited until everyone had met at least once before posting this rave -
Beginning with Cantemus and Chamber Singers on 9/21, then Chorale on 9/22, then the marvelously effective and efficient Chamber Intensive on 9/24 AND wow - Bella Voce on 9/26...what a feast!
Doc and I have been grinning with happiness and high-fiving since last Wednesday afternoon. We are beyond delighted with the nascent sound of every single group. We look forward to incredible concerts in 2016-2017.
This choir - it is SMOKIN'. We are going to TEAR IT UP this year!
Okay -
With 24? days remaining until Family Weekend, there's no time to waste - all hands at their posts - if you are having ANY kind of trouble with ANYTHING, raise your barbaric yawp to the Heavens and alert your section leader - alert me - alert Doc - don't wait, do it NOW.
At the beginning of last school year, I posted a bunch of links to free keyboard apps, interactive music theory sites, etc. - go to ARCHIVES in this site and look for the posts made in late September and early October 2016.
I am about to do some work in Sound Cloud. You should find your tracks newly alphabetized by this evening. If you still have trouble finding something, please email me at once.
And now - a little inspiration!
We're doing Sergei Rachmaninoff's moving "Nunc dimittis" setting at Family Weekend. This is a small part of a much larger work, "The All-Night Vigil," that uses Russian Orthodox chant in a felicitous fusion with Rachmaninoff's unique, unforgettable harmonic language and choral "soundscape."
Seattle University is located very near a Russian Orthodox church (look it up on Google). If you've never attended an Orthodox service, I recommend you visit the Capitol Hill church or the Orthodox cathedral, which is downtown.
http://www.saintnicholascathedral.org/
Those of you who have read your church history will recognize the date "1054" - what you will hear in the Orthodox service is a descendant of liturgies and theology from the OTHER side of that schism. Additionally, the Orthodox Communion has a thriving mystical tradition, beginning as far back as the writings of the Desert Fathers. If you'd like some titles, I'm happy to recommend...My own communion, the Ecclesia Gnostica, is more "eastern" than "western" in several important regards.
All of that said - visit these links and feast your eyes on the art and architecture of Russian Orthodox houses of worship. - Particularly, spend time contemplating the ikons. Ikons are crucial to the Orthodox Way, with strict rules of painting and an accompanying theology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_churches_in_Moscow - LOTS of links.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_icons - Good introductory article about ikons.
About the"All-Night Vigil" -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-Night_Vigil_(Rachmaninoff)
Story of the text "nunc dimittis" (Canticle of Simeon) -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunc_dimittis
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