BCC joins the Boston Arts Academy!

Guest Writer: Grace Thompson

On Thursday April 17th and Friday April 18th, the BCC's Premier Choir had the delight of performing with the best of the Boston Arts Academy at their spring concerts. I found the experience to be quite enjoyable! Premier, myself included, was reunited with many of the dancers who joined us in our annual MLK Holiday concert to dance the Dravidian Dithyramb. Once again, Dravidian Dithyramb was performed with BCC on vocals and the dancers gracing the stage with their expressive movements. We then had the chance to perform two new songs with BAA, Nick Page's Niska Banja, a flirty Serbian Gypsy dance with soloists Casey Accardi and Georgia Halliday, as well as Stephen Hatfield's fabulously zany work, Uberlebensgross, both of which incorporated dance, song, and percussion. Both of these pieces were a bounty of fun to sing. In Niska Banja we had the privilege of watching the amazing dancers flit across the stage, but of course we also remained focused on delivering the Serbian language to the best of our abilities. For our finale we gave every last bit of energy to Uberlebensgross, a piece in which some of BCC's very own singers get the oppurtunity to incorporate bamboo sticks, drums of all sorts, rainsticks, bells, chimes, and even body percussion. The event took place at the Back Bay Events Center, which had fantastic acoustics and was a splendid performance space overall. It had a spacious stage with the perfect amount of room for both our chorus and the dancers, which is very important! What really caught my attention while performing were the great lighting effects. The fabulous people at BAA managed to create a spectacle of colors, which came as quite a surprise to the BCC singers, as we did not rehearse with lighting and thus saw it for the first time during performance! I am sure it made our part of the concert look quite impressive from the audience's perspective. It was really a fun time, and since this went so well, we are bound to have more performances with BAA in the future.

BCC Benefit Concert!

Guest Writers: Madison Gordon and Jennifer Selvidge

Dreams Come True: a fitting title for a benefit concert for the Boston Children’s Chorus, because for some kids, BCC is just that. With the help of the Boston Children’s Chorus, singers that cannot afford the tuition are not barred from the chorus and these benefit concerts help to cover the cost. They are very important to us as without these concerts, some of our singers, who want so much to sing, wouldn’t have an opportunity to do so. And as with all concerts, we united as a group to pull our set together. Now it may sound like we, the BCC singers and staff did this concert alone, but this is most certainly not the case. We as a choir would like to thank Blue Cross Blue Shield, our lead corporate sponsor, as well as all of our other corporate sponsors. Additionally, we would like to thank the New England Conservatory for being our lead artistic partner. Last but certainly not least, who could forget the fabulous people at Concord Baptist Church, who lent us their space. And as usual we would like to thank Anthony Trecek-King, Michele Adams, and June Ambush, for their support of us and for pushing us to achieve.
We began the concert with the lovely voices of the training choirs. They sang Alleluia by W.A. Mozart and it was such a pleasure to listen to. We saw the future of the choir in these beautiful young voices, and let me tell you our future is looking bright! We then transitioned from our youngest chorus to the oldest as Premier Choir sang Lift Thine Eyes (Mendelssohn) from the balcony of the auditorium. This was spectacular because the overtones could really flourish from our unique and elevated location.
The next voices to sing were those of the intermediate choirs. They sang Winds by Larysa Kuzmenko followed by Hasivenu (arranged by Doreen Rao), an Israeli folk song. We especially enjoyed the latter song because it demonstrated even further how much diversity we have in BCC, not just in our singers but in our repertoire as well. The finale for the intermediate choirs was the cherished piece When I Close my Eyes by Jim Papoulis with our very own artistic director Anthony Trecek-King accompanying them on the cello. This song, soon to become a BCC classic, was strengthened by the wonderful blend of voices and strings.
The training choirs then sang Lets all Sing Together by Susie Davies conducted by Michele Adams, who always conducts with such energy and enthusiasm. Then all the choirs of BCC joined to sing Dona Nobis Pacem literally translated “Give Us Peace”. It was sung in a round, starting with the Training Choirs, followed by the Intermediate Choirs, and finishing with the Premier Chorus. Concert Choir then had its debut singing Ave Maria op. 19b by Antonin Dvorak, Let the River Run (arranged by Jay Althouse), and Thula S'Thandwa, a traditional Zulu lullaby arranged by Nick Page. Premier as a whole was greatly impressed by the growth apparent in Concert Choir, who has improved immensely since the beginning of the season. The training choirs then made their final solo performance singing Come Follow Me by John Hilton.
Finally it was time for Premier Chorus to take the stage, singing Lacrymosa by W.A. Mozart arranged by Robinson a beautiful and dynamically rich piece. Following Lacrymosa was Niska Banja, a flirtatious Serbian Gypsy dance song with soloists Georgia Halliday on soprano and Casey Accardi on alto. Finally, in honor of our Director of Operations & Programs, Mr. David Howse, Premier sang Can You Hear by Jim Papoulis.
As the evening came towards its finish, Young Men’s Voice Choir, BCC’s only all boys choir, sang Down in the Valley, a Kentucky folk song and Swing down Chariot arranged by Andre Thomas with fantastic solos from Grant Jones and Cautchy Bailey. YMVC really brought the crowd to their feet with this ending spiritual, and were most certainly a favorite of the evening.
Our final song was Siyahamba, from an arrangement by Henry Leck. All of our choirs sang together on it and the result was a masterpiece. Every voice was lifted in song, which is fitting, as the South African standard is a crying out for justice and freedom in South Africa. It is only with support from the people that a cry such as this could be heard. Siyahamba is an outcry from liberty, similarly BCC is effectively an outcry for social change. So this was a fitting end to our stellar concert. The children of BCC are ambassadors, sharing love in the form of song. This evening of song brought us together. Marvelous job to all those who performed, and to our audience members and readers of this blog, I hope you enjoyed our concert and will join us in trying to spread song. (Or maybe just at our next concert ☺)

Mahler’s Third Symphony with the Boston Conservatory Orchestra

Guest Writer: Georgia Halliday

Normally, when we perform, the basic idea is pretty simple: We put on our uniforms, get up on stage, do what we’ve been practicing in rehearsal, try to remember that crescendo in measure 35, and hopefully at the end everybody claps.

Throw a hundred other musicians into the process, and things get more complicated.

This is the challenge we were faced with when we performed Mahler’s Third Symphony with the Boston Conservatory Orchestra and Women’s Chorus. Let me first say that if you haven’t listened obsessively to Mahler’s symphonies for at least several weeks, then you have missed out enormously: they are beautiful. The Third is less frequently performed than the others because it requires a very large orchestra and a long attention span (the full symphony lasts over an hour and a half), so this was a rare opportunity for us.

One of the biggest challenges we had to overcome was that of volume. The BCC was singing the part of the Knabenchor, or Bell Choir, in the fifth movement. Being a bell choir meant we spent a considerable amount of time singing “Bimm, bamm, bimm, bamm,” which is mostly humming. Try humming over an orchestra. It’s pretty hard.

With a little maneuvering, we managed to solve that problem by assigning some members of both the BCC and the Women’s Chorus to sing more vowel and less hum (“Shh, don’t tell,” whispered the conductor of the Women’s Chorus).

Working with the orchestra was also unusual for us because we had a different conductor, the Boston Conservatory conductor Bruce Hangen. Not only did he have a whole orchestra to concentrate us, he was far below on the stage while we sang from the mezzanine, which forced us to be more independent and concentrate on our own entrances and cutoffs.

While rehearsing the piece on our own, we spent a while going over how to find each note for each entrance by looking at the parts of the other choir, the soloist, or the orchestra. When we arrived at the first rehearsal with orchestra, everyone was impressed when we told them, “Sure, we can find our note from that last A in the fourth movement. We just go down a major third and then jump three octaves.”

Sanders Theatre at Harvard is a beautiful building to perform in: the tall hall makes for great acoustics and my friend Cyrus spent several minutes waxing poetic about the architecture. It is always a wonderful experience to be a part of an ensemble that big, feeling the power of the music filling the room. You could close your eyes and imagine that there really were angels singing.

Joint Concert and Hosting Experience with Carmina from the Czech Republic!

Guest Writer: Nina Goodman, Premier Choir

With this being my second year in BCC, I am still surprised by all the great things that we are able to do. When my mother and I arrived at the airport to pick up the six Czech choristers from the Czech choir, I had assumed that it would be like when the choir from Chicago had stayed with my family the past year. But, to my astonishment, it was an entirely different cultural experience. While at the airport every one was trying to imagine what the visiting singers would be like… would they be as excited about meeting us as we were to meet them? The answer to that was yes.

With rehearsals every day and all sorts of other tourist-y experiences planned for the Czechs, they got just enough sleep to get through to the next activity. We managed to have a great deal of fun and perform wonderfully under the hectic circumstances. It seemed that the best time that we were able to have together was at the potluck dinner the Mia Ferguson and Sherylynn Sealy (Premier Choir Vice President and President) put together. With music, food and a small craft to break the ice, we all got along great. As we made traditional paper hand turkeys, Sherylynn shared some information about thanksgiving and although the language was somewhat difficult, we got to share an aspect of our culture with the visitors.

During the second to last night of the Czechs visit, they showered us with gifts from their homeland, which included embroidery, chocolates, chocolates, and more chocolates. We gave them Boston red sox jackets so that they could say that they were official Bostonians.

The next night was the concert that was filled with all sorts of fun suprises. Carmina wowed us with their expressiveness and enthusiasm on stage, however the highlight was when the whipped off their regular performance outfits and performed some classic Czech folk songs in traditional Czech clothing. The song that I believe we had the most compliments on was “Freedom Trilogy”. All in all I think that it was a great concert and a fabulous experience through out the whole thing.

BCC Fall Concert!

Fall Concert 2007

This year, for the first time ever, BCC held a fall concert for the general public. It was a enjoyable evening filled with excitment radiating from all of the BCC choirs, as well as from the warm and welcoming audience. In order to represent the real singer perspective, interviews have been conducted with members from various choirs within the BCC, telling of the fall concert experience from many point of views! Read on!

Laura Potter, age 15, represents Premier

What is your favorite aspect of being in BCC?
LP: This is my second year singing in the Boston Children's Chorus. The best part of being a member of the chorus is being around the most talented, encouraging, and inspired people, both staff and fellow singers, that I have ever met. In such a rigorous yet supportive environment, I have been able to grow as a musician and to make friends. The BCC community is singularly unique in this way; we adapt as a group to fit every singer's individual needs, and the product of our work is extraordinary.

BCC: Which selections did your choir perform at the Fall Concert?
LP: At this year's Fall Concert, the Premier Choir performed five pieces. We opened the program with "Lift Thine Eyes" from "Elijah" by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, followed by "Can You Hear" by Jim Papoulis. Then, we sang "In Paradisum", a Gregorian chant and "Eternity" by Michael Bojesen. We then walked out to "Mu ku ki La may", an African melody that we learned on our retreat to New Hampshire at the beginning of the season.

BCC: Were you nervous before the performance?
LP: No, I was not particularly nervous before the performance. There were a song or two in our selections that we, the PC, were concerned might not be as polished as we might have liked, but on the whole we were more excited than worried. I think everybody gets last minute jitters right before going on stage, but as soon as we start to sing everyone feels more comfortable and relaxed.

BCC: What was your favorite part of the performance?

LP: My favorite part of the performance was the effect of our semi-circle formation for the last selection, "Eternity". During the Gregorian chant of "In Paradisum", the PC split into three groups, and two of these groups processed out into the aisles of the audience, creating a long arc of singers, while the other group remained on stage. This piece is, as our conductor and Artistic Director Mr. Trecek-King described to the audience that evening, about reflection, thought, and finding comfort in something as solid and quiet as a stone from the beach. After singing the three verses at the beginning of the piece, the choir converges on one singular note, and slowly, one by one, small groups of singers begin to diverge from this note and sing hauntingly beautiful melodies, reaching a full and glorious climax before returning to that same note in unison at the end. Because the choir was spread throughout the audience as well as the stage, the effect was an enveloping, perpetually sustained, flowing sound that reached the audience from not one but three directions. Our performance of "Eternity" was, therefore, a success and my favorite piece that PC sang that night.

Laura Davis, age 17, gives us the Concert Choir perspective..

BCC: What is your favorite aspect of being in BCC?

LD: I have been in BCC since last year, and I love coming into Boston every week, and I have learned SO much about music, in fact way more than my violin teacher taught me when I took violin for four years.

BCC: Which selections did your choir perform at the Fall Concert?

LD: We sang "Feel Good" composed by L. Craig Tyson

BCC: Were you nervous before the performance?

LD: I wasn't nervous because I'm used to performing, but I was slightly nervous for my choir because sometimes we have trouble paying attention through the whole performance, but it came together quite nicely!

BCC: What was your favorite part of the performance?

LD: Well, I am not sure what the audience would say, but it was really fun to see my supportive friends taking snapshots from the front row as we sang!

Charlotte Del Col represents Villa Victoria

BCC: What is your favorite part of being in the BCC?

CDC: I have been in BCC for two years now, and I really like being with my friends from the choir.

BCC: What pieces did your choir sing at the Fall Concert?

CDC: Let's Sing Altogether, Thank you for the World So Sweet and Seagull.

BCC: Were you nervous before the performance?

CDC: Right before the performance I get a little nervous. Once we start to sing, I'm not nervous.

BCC: What was your favorite moment of the Fall Concert?

CDC:When everyone claps I feel proud. I also like when we take our bows.