Audition
5:31 pm - 14 January, 2010
Well, I just auditioned for a solo in ICU Choir's forthcoming performance of Bach's St John Passion, and, although I could've done better, I definitely don't feel that I embarrassed myself. I felt that last time I auditioned (for Messiah a few years back) I did embarrass myself a bit.
The piece I auditioned (Mein Teurer Heiland (English: My Dear Saviour)) is one of my favourite arias in the oratorio. Bach does one of the things which he does the best, which is to seamlessly weave together a chorale and an elegant contrapoint. In this case, the bass solo and the continuo provide the cointerpoint, while the choir intermittently come in with the chorale. From the soloists point of view, there are a number of scary bits. For me, they were the bits that I couldn't sing quite right (there's a melismatic passage that I can rarely get in one breath, and took about 3 this time). However, it's also at least a little scary when the accompaniment drops away and you have to come in, or continue singing all on your own.
Philippa was trying to make some analogy about getting on a bus. I'm not quite sure I got her point. I was thinking about a time when I went to Victoria and just missed a bus I wanted. Getting out of Victoria takes a while, because there are two or three sets of lights, plenty of traffic and a one-way system, so I managed to beat it to the next stop (which is closer by foot). I'm not sure that this translates to anything relevant to singing, but I like to push analogies too far.
Congenial
1:42 am - 11 January, 2010
So I was watching Miss Congeniality 2 (Armed and... I forget) this evening, and I thought some of the music seemed familiar. In fact, it sounded like Chicken Run, which is what it was. Maybe they couldn't afford an original score for the picture.
It wasn't a great film. The only bit that really made me laugh out loud was when William Shatner was claiming he had acting experience: "I played Yago in Twelfth Night."
