Blogs

In the upcoming concert, Portrait of the American Civil War, FCS & the Washington Symphonic Brass will be presenting selections from the movie Glory, with music by James Horner.  One of our Adult Chorus Members, Jamie Adams, put together some great information about the peice:

After several weeks of studying a new musical element, my students and I re-enact the dictation scene from Amadeus—I exhort them to write more quickly; they protest I go too fast. We’re not working from my deathbed, but there is a sense of urgency, and I think it really must be so.

It’s always amazing and exciting when a new composition by a significant composer from an earlier generation is discovered and heard for the first time. The Fairfax Choral Society had the privilege of presenting the Washington-area premieres of two newly-discovered works when we presented Felix Mendelssohn’s Magnificat in 1995 and George Frederic Handel’s Gloria in 2001.

Being a high school choir director, I’m asked all the time: “Do you watch Glee?” I’ve been a hold out – I do not watch Glee. I usually make up the excuse that I do high school choir all day so why do I want to go home and watch it on TV? I generally follow up with “do doctors go home and watch ER?” (nevermind that ER’s been off the air for years – kinda like referencing WKRP in Cincinnati with my teenage students)

The auditions are done, the season is set, folders are being assigned... but what to put in them? For the West Campus Pilot Choir, the very first FCS choir for auditioned 7-10 year olds in western Fairfax County, the task of choosing the right repertoire was a fun challenge for me.

The new year of school begins an exciting time in the choral classroom. Singers get acquainted, or reacquainted with the director and each other, eagerness runs high, and excitement is in the air. As the bond between choir and director grows, so also does the opportunity for blend, balance, and cohesion in the choir. Often, it can be quite a shock to start the beginning of the year with the sounds of last year’s final concert in the director’s ears. Voices are “out of shape” from the summer, sticking out from the blend of the group, or not in tune. Training and shaping the choir is a continual process, new every fall.

Ralph Vaughan Williams believed that music should speak for itself and that it should not require lengthy explanations or extensive program notes. “The duty of words,” he explained, “is to say just as much as the music has left unsaid, no more.”