BellaVoceSingers

Eat and hope - Spring will come again

At this very moment, we are anticipating a snowfall (not a big one, but you never know). Although this winter has not been really awful -- YET -- there is a certain funk that overtakes the soul. Bella Voce has not met since December, so Monday nights are slightly empty, and we have to read on the subway instead of practicing our parts. Poor us!

But there is hope! For instance, January 20 (the day I am writing this) is National Cheese Lover's Day. I kid you not -- our government has taken the time to make these proclamations.

It is often these days that I have my view of life shifted around.

And the last time I owe it to Jessica. It was during one of the last rehearsals, when she pointed out the role of the singers “in the middle.” Being often in the most populated sections in a choir I have settled with the idea that I am a mezzo soprano and an Alto 1 because I cannot sing too high or too low.

The day after our final performance of 2011, a group of us went caroling around Park Slope. The caroling route was organized around the businesses who had supported us through purchasing ads for our concert program, and many of them were truly appreciative of the gesture. But in addition to this "thank you" to our community supporters, the afternoon was about joining together in song in a way that was completely different than our usual. We weren't rehearsed or even planned. It was a rather spontaneous, casual, and completely pressure-free musical outing.

Has anyone else noticed that every year there are new and different challenges presented to us in our music? Some years it is a whole lot of languages. We have sung in Chinese, French, Latin, German, Hebrew, some Native American languages, and probably other ones that I can't remember right now. Some years it is clapping, stamping, or playing instruments while singing. Sometimes it is a whole lot of nonsense syllables. Sometimes it is a whole set of lost chords, modes, and keys we never saw before.

Bella Voce Singers thanks the businesses below for placing an ad with us in our
10th Anniversary concert programs.

Their patronage enables us to perform great works four times each year.
We enthusiastically hope that each business will benefit from this exposure!
Please join us in thanking these businesses with our support as we approach our
2011-2012 season!!

Bob/Judy Coollectibles
Botanic on 5th
brooklyn writers space
cafe regular
Clean N'Green Laundromat
Dizzy's
Good Footing Adventures
J&R TV
Leopoldi's
Ozzie's
Park Slope PHotocopy
Purity Diner
Scaredy Kat

We do it in the shower, we do it in the car; some of us do it in church or school.

It can excite a crowd, or calm a baby.

It inexplicably moves us; it can bring us to tears.

Even if we don't understand it, we can appreciate and love it.

I just don't get poetry.
Never have.

Symbolism? Completely wasted on me.
Deeper meaning? No thanks.

I take things literally. Say what you mean! I have no time for frilly words, searching, lack of punctuation, no capital letters, sentences split up for no obvious reason, let alone trying to figure out what the heck the poet is trying to convey to me.

Unless the poem is set to music.

Suddenly, the clouds lift and my eyes are opened. My mind can finally make sense of it all.

Bella Voce Singers thanks the businesses below for placing an ad with us in our 2009-2010 concert programs.
Their support enables us to perform great works four times each year.
This December, we performed two concerts in Bay Ridge and Park Slope to an audience of approximately 250 people.
We enthusiastically hope that each business will benefit from this exposure!

AT&T 7th Ave.
Scaredy Kat
Botanica OBO
J&R Television
Purity Diner
Good Footing Adventure
Bob & Judi’s Coolectibles
Tarzian
Park Slope Copy
City Casuals
La Bruschetta
Fall Cafe
Ozzie’s
Brooklyn Writer’s Space

I’ve never written a blog entry.  In fact, I don’t really read other  blogs, but sometimes thoughts run through my head so rapidly that I feel desperate to write them down in order to hold onto that moment that got my head churning in the first place.  Tonight, I had one of those moments. 

Not too long ago, I read that a new production of Puccini’s opera Tosca was booed at the Met. Naturally, I had to run to a performance to make sure to find out what the commotion was all about…the People were reacting pretty negatively to a new interpretation, to a new representation of a very popular opera. Artistic choices aside, I find it is fascinating how a representation of a work can become so emblematic that an audience may be so resistant to any change in "vision"...