The Dougherty Valley High School choirs that performed in the Dougherty Valley Performing Center were amazing for being such small choirs. This concert took place on December 6th, 2011. The director of this choir is Diana Walker, and she has been teaching choral music at Dougherty Valley High School for many years and had choir experience herself for many years. The Dougherty Valley choirs are all high school choirs and they are one of the best in this state. The two types of choir that performed at this concert were Women’s Chorus and Mixed Choir. Back then the choirs didn’t attend the annual Golden State Competition, but as years went by, they became more known and they gradually became one of the top 10 choirs at the Golden State Competition. …show more content…
If a person pays super close attention to any sorts of sounds that the choirs might have been created, individual breaths can also be heard. In all of the songs, there weren’t many decrescendos, but there were many crescendos.The crescendos must have been put in there to a dynamic contrast between sections or phrases of the pieces. Most of the vowels weren’t open and unified, but they weren’t also closed and tight. They were somewhere in between. When it comes down to whether if there were more open and closed vowels, there would have been more open and unified vowels. Most of the time, the choirs were on tune but when it came to the high parts, they were mostly of tune and sounded like they were kind of screeching. Also they were sharp sometimes throughout their pieces, and it usually revolved around one or two notes. My favorite song was Eliyahu Havavi because it had a variety of tempos and dynamics, and it was very mystical. My favorite musical component of that piece was when they sang the “ya”’s because the way that they sang the “ya”’s sounded really good. My least favorite song was Kyrie because the words of that piece couldn’t be made out, there were very little dynamical components, and the piece itself sung didn’t sound good overall. All in all, the concert was a success in my opinion and they sang the piece without messing up. It was a decent concert in
I thoroughly enjoyed this concert from beginning to end. The opening piece, “String Quartet in F Major, K 590”, was both soothing and moving with an engaging theme that followed through the piece. The sudden stops and starts with changes in theme built the suspense and pulled the listener in to a jaunty gallop through the second section. Also the bass tones in the back ground seem to be slightly off kilter with the violins, providing a complex texture and harmony that provides depth and poignancy to the music.
The first piece presented in this concert was Robert Strauss’ Metamorphosen, Study for 23 Solo Strings a piece was composed during the last months of World War II, from August 1944 to March 1945, dedicated it to Paul Sacher. It was first performed in January 1946 with ten violins, five violas, five cellos, and three double basses, this was immolated in the performance by the Atlanta Symphony orchestra on April 13th that I attended. It is widely believed that Strauss wrote the work as a statement of mourning for Germany's destruction during the war, in particular as an elegy for devastating bombing of Munich during the second World War.
Another technique we have to learn in choir practice is we learn now to pronounce vowels and consonants correctly. An example of that would be pronouncing out “D”s as light “T”s. We also have to keep our mouth round and you cannot smile while you’re singing or else it ruins the effect of the vowels. One thing we always always must do is to pronounce the consonants loudly. What our conductors always make us do to help us remember this is to say “We LoVe ouR CoNSoNaNTS!”.
The final event I attended was the All-East Men’s Choir concert, held Saturday, November 19th, 2016 in the Ronald and Lynda Nutt theatre in the Clayton Center at Maryville College. This was an all-male choir that participated in the All-East choral competition in order to be scored on how well they performed their pieces. The choral music professor Stan McGill conducted this performance, with Webb’s School of Knoxville’s Jean Helbig accompanying. The choir performed six songs during their concert, but in this essay I will be discussing three: “Freedom Come”, “Tell My Father”, and “Pirate Song”.
Every performance was presented with charm. The flashing, changing colors seem to go along with the performances. The director was humorous. The performers outfits were on point too. I liked the color coding of the vocalists, Jeremy, Jordan, and Rowan. Also, Julie wore a pretty suede dress and had a great voice. It was nice to see her come out for the 2nd time to sing. When Spencer kept playing his saxophone in some of the performances, it was just amazing. Some of my favorite performances were Sittin on the Dock of the Bay, Ain’t too Proud to Beg, In a Sentimental Mood, and more. It really made me feel like I was in New Orleans all over again. I absolutely love Otis Redding and The Temptations music, so I wasn’t new to these songs they played. I was sitting in the back (R-125) where I felt comfortable to bob my head to the music. If I ever come back to see another concert, I will make sure to get a seat in the back again. I adore Jordan that did sung the Temptations song. I thought it was exciting to see his enthusiasm while on stage keeping us engaged, but everyone did great in their own way. The song by Duke Ellington made me feel melancholy, the piece was soft. I just couldn’t believe how well everyone contributed and gave an outstanding
The spring choir concert that I went to was like the percussion concert just with singing. I enjoyed listening to the singers as they sung the different melodies. As I was sitting there listening to the different singers sing I could not help but to think about how strong there voices are and how strong they must be to get over the big space of the performance center. Voice is just lost in such a big space like the one in the Price performance center, they have to work on their voices and make sure that they can sing loud, clear and strong to get it across to the audience. Also, while trying to do that they must make sure that the quality is not lost while trying to increase the loudness of their voice. I could also tell the different voices such as the tenors the sopranos and the altos. I could not help but to realize how these different voices interacted with each other and how without one set the sound would not be the same and would be lost. I don’t understand how some people can sing as high as they do, such as the alto section. They must have some hard exercising for their voice to get as high as it does and to sound just as good.
...rall the performance was entertaining and delightful and most of the audience obviously thought so too. Musically the sound was definitely there. There was not a lot of crowd involvement in this type of performance, but the music was very easy to interpret, and plenty enjoyable anyway.
The Concert Choir performed next and sounded very nice. The first song they sang was “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” arranged by Kern. The second song was “Ding! Dong! Merrily on High” arranged by Burrows. The third song
On November 15, 2015 and November 22, 2015 I attended two concerts at the Harris Theater put on by the George Mason University School of Music. The two performances I attended were the Mason Jazz Vocal Night and the Vocal Pops concert entitled “Sing, Sing, Sing”, respectively. The MJVN featured the Mason Jazz Vocal Ensemble as well as some soloists from the Jazz Voice Studio such as Linnea Monson, Tracey Wright, and Markus Ellis. The Herndon High School Vocal Jazz group was also present and performed a few songs as their own group and then the closing piece “America the Beautiful” with the rest of the performers. As stated throughout many of these group names, the genre these performers fall into is jazz. Most of the songs performed were traditional jazz songs, though a few were more modern jazz pieces. All of the members of the “Mason” groups were GMU students.
The first song, Magnificat in C, was one of the longer songs performed, and featured many solos by Union students. This song is in Latin, but due to the English translation the audience received prior to the performance, we were able to follow along and comprehend the lyrics. This song demonstrated the various parts of a choir and allowed the sopranos, altos, and tenors to express themselves through sectional solos.
I thought that throughout this piece the melody could have had clearer articulation; just because one is playing softly does not mean they cannot be playing crisply. When the choir first entered, the balance was fairly strong. I liked the way the percussion fit into the sound without overpowering either the band or the choir; I felt the percussive instruments really added a unique flavor to the piece. At 29 the choir’s volume drops; however, as they are singing on a neutral syllable this does make a little sense. But as the group continues from there, the balance continues to shift, and by the time measure 37 is reached the choral sound is difficult to distinguish. At measure 53 they return strong with the melody and balance returns; this is another location, though, where I thought that despite the quiet volume the band could have articulated more. A final spot this applied was the end of the piece; one could clearly make out the flute line, but most of the other parts were lost. Overall, if I had to make one statement regarding this piece, it would be that playing quietly does not have to mean playing
The elements of music used in “Honey and Rue” strongly emulated the elements that stem from classical style. Classical style introduced flexibility, contrast, surprise, and variety to music and the instruments. For example, in “First I’ll Try Love,” the sopranist and the pianist frequently exchanged between crescendo and decrescendo while singing about the emotion of love. Sometimes, Verner would raise the loudness of her voice, quicken the tempo, and increase her pitch to sing quotes like, “First, I tried love.” Other times, Verner’s pitch would be quiet, soft, and lower in pitch to express phrases such as, “Although I’ve never heard the word referred to, even whispered to me.” Also, Hahm would increase the tempo of the piano and change the dynamics from loud and dramatic to soft and tender. There was frequent use of accents of syncopations, especially in the song “The Town Is Lit.” For example, in the line, “Trees in the park dance after dark to music in all the cafes,” Verner and Hahm simultaneously stress the high pitched and long-held note sung/played during the word “music,” which caused the audience to look quickly as this syncopation caught them by surprise. Instances like this intermittently occurred, especially during the ends of songs where the last word/note is accented. The different rhythms in the cycle were also heavily
Which I heard not many pianists can do. One thing I notice is they change the direction of the piano, so they can face each. They also close the soundboard to help contain the sound. The pianist did a great job playing without overwhelming the guitar. We could hear the pianist, as well as the guitar equally. Although they did a great job, but I did not find any of the songs that grab my attention. Well not enough for me to write about it in my report. My favorite performance of the night was the trio, which goes by the name of serenade. The trio included a piano, a violin, and a flute. The flute player was favorite. I’m not sure if I’m being bias, because the flute it’s my favorite instrument. It probably because the way she elaborates each note effortlessly. The third song they played was upbeat and fun. Something you would hear at a dance party back then. It started with a moderate loud than got soft as the violent had her solo, follow by the flute and the piano maintaining the same tone. Eventually crescendo when they started playing the hook. Overall the concert was great, it
A sufficient reason for attending many NYCB performances, even of the same program when possible, is that one can never tell beforehand when the constituent elements of the ballet-going experience will jell effectively for them. For a non-musician like myself, it is difficult to “see" the music, but on Sunday afternoon it felt as if I did. Mozart’s and Tschaikovsky’s composition never sounded so sublime. Alexander Glazounov’s music was imbued with an irresistible beauty of its own. And the company was firing on all cylinders for this matinee! Maria Kowroski and Tyler Angle were deeply moving in Mozartiana; Teresa Reichlen and Russell Janzen, spectacular in Cortège Hongrois. All the subordinate parts, by Daniel Ulbricht in one work and Lauren King, Emilie Gerrity, Savannah Lowery and Ask la Cour in the other, were performed admirably. The work of the corps members shone throughout. This was easily the most satisfying of the five
I enjoyed myself to the point that this concert no longer felt as if it were an assignment to me. I was happy that I was able to attend this beautiful work of art that was put together by the small group of students and truly enjoy everything that they had put into this concert. I truly do wish that this concert would have been able to have been scheduled to be played in a different concert hall, as not being able to see the performers aside from a small glimpse here or there really had put a damper on the entirety of the concert. The only positive that I was able to find from this was that it kept my eyes from wandering and allowed me to better listen to the music that was being played. It prevented me from being distracted and missing out on pieces of the concert that I may have missed otherwise. One of my favorite parts of the concert had to of been when they had brought out the drum set for the final piece they were going to play for the night. It made you appreciate what foundation the drums can really set for any piece, you might not realize when it there, but as soon as you are to take it away, the piece can feel entirely different. While I was in band through junior high and part of high school, our percussion section truly did play a large part as the foundation of our entire band, and I had not realized it until just after this concert. The percussion in any piece can make the world of difference. It can be the thing that truly makes a piece what it is known