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From:  Margaret Harrison <peggyh@i...>
Date:  Mon Sep 24, 2001  11:04 pm
Subject:  Re: Bragging a little and Will be gone for a few days

Dear Vocalisters:

Second topic first: Yours truly, the Vocalist-temporary
backup-moderator, will be out of town for Yom Kippur from
Wednesday (9/26) through Saturday (9/29). I will have
internet access at my parents' house, but they don't like me
to spend too much time on the internet, so I can only check
e-mail briefly. If you need my immediate attention on
something, the best way is to e-mail me privately (because I
notice private messages first) at peggyh@i....

Now for the bragging: My chorus (NOVA Community Chorus)
last Saturday participated in a locally momentus event: we
sang the Poulenc "Gloria" at the opening concert of the new
"Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center" on the
Alexandria campus of Northern Virginia Community College,
where the NOVA Community Chorus is based. The concert was a
great success, and we got a rave review from Joseph
McClellan in the Washington Post - the best chorus review
that I can remember reading around here! An excerpt and a
link to the full review is pasted in below.

What made the event momentus to me was not just the
meaningfulness of the music-making in this emotional time,
and the amazing reaction of the audience (There was not a
sound to be heard in this acoustically live hall for what
seemed like an eternity after we finished the Poulenc Gloria
- they waited until the conductor dropped his arms and then
went nuts. And it was the same after we sang, "America the
Beautiful" at the very end, (when this singer was, for the
first time, able to cry and sing at the same time.) It also
was how long we've waited for this concert to occur.
They've been talking about building this concert hall for
over 10 years, and it was about finished and supposed to
have opened a year ago, but got held up due to construction
contractor problems. But now we have a first-class concert
hall in the city of Alexandria, Virginia, my home town! I
look forward to listening to and singing in many
performances there, and hopefully some of our local
Vocalisters will get to a concert there some time.

Here's the link to the review, followed by my favorite
paragraph:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14265-2001Sep23.html

"Most remarkable of all was the clear contour of complex
sounds -- particularly perceptible in the choral singing.
Every syllable of the Gloria's ancient Latin text was
perfectly formed, totally intelligible, to a degree rarely
heard from large amateur choruses. The effect was like that
of a single, carefully groomed voice. Much of the credit for
this quality goes to the music directors who trained the
three choruses: Barry Hemphill of the Metropolitan Chorus,
Thomas Beveridge of the New Dominion Chorale and Mark
Whitmire of the NOVA Community Chorus -- but the acoustic
engineering of the hall made a crucial contribution."

Peggy

--
Margaret Harrison, Alexandria, Virginia, USA
"Music for a While Shall All Your Cares Beguile"
mailto:peggyh@i...



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