Summer Singers Score!

The Seventh Annual Michael O’Neal Summer Singers performed Bach to Broadway to a wildly appreciative audience this past Sunday afternoon.  Nearly 750 audience members heard 150 singers perform a program ranging from choruses of Bach, Handel and Haydn all the way to musical theatre selections from Man of La Mancha, West Side Story, The Phantom of the Opera, and Les Miserables.   The variety of our programming in that concert is analogous to the variety of backgrounds of the Summer Singers membership.  I’ve enjoyed conducting this non-auditioned chorus each summer in part because of the vast background of singing experiences represented.  The Summer Singers chorus includes individuals who might never be comfortable going through an audition procedure for our regular chorus membership to singers who are professional musicians and just don’t have the time to participate in a chorus during the regular season.  When you take these two extremes and add singers who are at every level between the two, you have The Michael O’Neal Summer Singers!  I love working with these folks for a number of reasons, not the least of which is their obvious joy in making music, and making it to the best of their abilities.  As I told them in the warm up for our Sunday concert, in choral singing we often experience the Gestalt theory of the “whole being greater than the sum of its parts.”  In other words, we are able to accomplish something together we could never achieve individually.

For seven years my summers have been immeasurably blessed by my work with these wonderful and dedicated singers.  This summer was especially rewarding.  My sincere thanks to all of them.

I Choose to Sing!

The Michael O’Neal Summer Singers began its 7th Season last night with about 155 voices joining together in selections by such composers as Bach, Haydn, Brahms, Verdi, Bernstein, and others.  It was a glorious evening as these folks, representing a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences, came together for the shared purpose of making beautiful music.  It was exciting for me to feel the energy in the room as we began our two and half hour rehearsal, and although I was a little tired at its conclusion, I was also at the same time invigorated by what we had accomplished.  The enthusiasm of volunteer singers is a wondrous thing to witness and I look forward to our summer of music!

At the end of yesterday’s rehearsal, I mentioned a blog I wrote in March 2010 entitled Why We Sing.  In that blog I had listed reasons singers had shared with me in the past about why they sang in choruses and I invited new responses to that question.  I’m doing the same thing today.  We all have an enormous range of possible activities in which we can engage.  To sing in a volunteer chorus is a choice from among all those activities.  So, why do you choose to sing?

Singing in the Summer!

We’re about to begin the seventh season of The Michael O’Neal Summer Singers and our program this year is entitled Bach to Broadway.  Selections by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Verdi, and Parry will comprise the first part of the concert, followed by songs from Man of La Mancha, West Side Story, The Phantom of the Opera, and Les Misérables.  The variety of musical pieces in this concert in some ways reminds me of the great variety of singers we have in Summer Singers.

The Summer Singers (MOSS), unlike the regular season MOS, is a completely non-auditioned chorus, and open to all interested singers.  The wide range of experience found in the individual singers in each summer’s chorus helps make the entire effort very gratifying to me.  I love taking people of various backgrounds and skill levels and helping them become a unified and sensitive musical ensemble.  In just a few days we’ll have over 150 singers joining together in the shared purpose of making music!  I can hardly wait!

Choral Gems

A gem can be defined as “something prized especially for great beauty or perfection.”   MOS begins its season on October 24 with a program entitled Choral Gems, consisting of music that fits that definition.  Chosen from some of history’s greatest choral masterpieces, the selections sung will span 250 years of creative genius and will include many beautiful and recognized melodies.  While most of the pieces are settings of sacred Christian texts, I would suggest that the nature of these selections transcends the religious boundaries of specific dogmas.  That is one of the reasons I derive so much satisfaction from performing this music, as it provides an opportunity to have a window through which may be glimpsed the “divine other.”   If one believes, as I do, that great composers can sometimes create these windows through which we obtain our “glimpses,” we can further understand and appreciate the responsibility that has been given to those of us who perform , as we attempt to faithfully fulfill the wishes of the composer.

One of the greatest experiences ever provided me as a musician was to have the opportunity to sing under the direction of Robert Shaw for nearly twenty years.  Shaw, former conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Choruses, and possibly the greatest choral conductor of the 20^th Century, gave the reason he so revered Arturo Toscanini to be that “he never felt sorry for himself, he only felt sorry for the composer.”   I heard Mr. Shaw repeat those words often and I believe they describe him as well as they did Maestro Toscanini.  It was through Shaw’s performances of the masterpieces represented in today’s program that I developed at least a partial understanding of the emotional and intellectual depths explored in this music.  So as MOS performs pieces from the repertoire of Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff, Duruflé and Orff, it is my hope that all present, performers and audience members alike, may be transported to a place that will allow us all to experience the enormous beauty and profundity of these “choral gems.”

Technology and Me

For several years I’ve been an enthusiastic iPod user.  I listen to music, books, and podcasts, and currently have 47.64 GB stored (out of 160 GB available).  That 47.64 GB translates into 32.7 days of possible listening, or 885 hours if you’d like to think of it that way.  As if that weren’t keeping me busy enough, I’ve now added an iPhone to my technical arsenal, and I’m afraid I’m hooked.  The apps are much too enticing and I’ve already added more of them than I need, although I’ve had this little addictive iPhone less than a month!

Still, I suppose there are two apps that have taken most of my time and only one of them happens to be musical.  The non-musical one is Scrabble, my favorite game of all time.  My win rate is currently 80% against the computer and I expect that to remain the same until I allow the computer to increase its skill level!  The musical app is Pandora radio and I’ve had a ball listening to that.  The listening possibilities on my iPod have evidently not been enough, for I’m now selecting from an array of Pandora stations (all created by me I might add).  I often select a “quick mix” that might create a lineup of artists such as:  Frank Sinatra, Vaughan Williams, Neil Sedaka, J.S. Bach, Ella Fitzgerald, Danny & the Juniors, etc.   With this cornucopia of listening pleasures provided by my iPod and iPhone, I’m afraid my extensive CD and LP collections have been sadly neglected of late. 

As a musician, I’m thrilled to have this listening potential available at the push of a button, especially when I compare it to what was possible at the beginning of my “listening career” so many years ago (six LPs and an FM radio station that broadcast two hours of classical music daily).  And yet, I must say that even with all the entertaining and instructive hours of music available to me today, nothing satisfies me like a choral rehearsal filled with persons committed to making the most beautiful music possible.  I am fortunate to have several possibilities such as that each week, and for that I am eternally grateful.  For me, and I hope for others, “recorded” music will never take the place of “live” music.

Christmas Favorites

The Michael O’Neal Singers (MOS) just perfomed its Christmas Concert for an audience of 1000.   Joining us in our performance was the Georgia Regional Girls Choir (GRGC), a wonderful ensemble consisting of elementary through high school students.   In addition to an audience sing along and several individual pieces, the program consisted primarily of two extended works:  Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, performed by GRGC and Antonio Vivaldi’s Gloria, performed by MOS.  These are two of my favorite ”Christmas” pieces and each ensemble sang its respective selection splendidly.   In a world filled with so much noise that passes as music during this holiday season, it is refreshing to know there are still people who want to sing (and hear) music by composers such as Britten and Vivaldi.  Some of my other favorite holiday “big” works are Hodie by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Christmas Oratorio and Magnificat by J.S. Bach, and Laud to the Nativity by Ottavio Respighi.

I’m always interested in hearing what other people enjoy singing and hearing.  It  helps me as I plan future concerts!  So why not share some of your favorite extended (15 minutes or longer) Christmas choral selections?  Who knows?  You might find your favorite included in a future MOS concert!