Check here each week for rehearsal notes and other important information concerning Bel Canto Napa.

Wednesday, March 16, 2022

SPRING 2022 - Rehearsal Notes for Tuesday, March 22

Dear Friends,

We had a very good rehearsal last evening. You were singing beautifully and expressively. Keep it up! We missed a few of you who were under the weather or unable to make it.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

  • PHOTO SHOOT:  The photo shoot has been postponed as we don't want to have any of our members are missing. Please, post you absence on the Google calendar. If you're not sure how, please shoot Joanna a message and she can help you. I will choose the first available date in April when you are all here.
  • VOLUNTEERS: We will be needing additional volunteers to help with our concerts, especially as we will have a reception following the Friday evening concert, April 29, at the Napa Methodist Church. Let Wendy know of volunteer needs for ticket sales, ushering, set-up, and clean-up.
  • MAILING LIST: If you know of people to add to our mailing list, please do so as Chuck will be sending out an email blast to alert people of our upcoming concerts.
FOR REHEARSAL

There Is a Pleasure
  • Read through the poem aloud a couple of times. Read expressively, emphasizing important words and de-emphasizing less important. Listen to the sounds of the words and give them meaning by your inflection. Listen to the cadence of the phrases. 
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
  • After reading, sing through your part alone and then with the performance track using an even greater sense of expressing the words and cadence than you did while reading.
  • Do it mindful of the given expression marks.
The Sweetheart of the Sun
  • Read the poem, and do so as if reading for someone who is hard of hearing, clearly and with lots of expression. Use the words to paint the scene.

She stood (so fair) amid the corn,
Clasped by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,
Who many a glowing kiss had won.

On her cheek an autumn flush,
Deeply ripened;—such a blush
In the midst of brown was born,
Like red poppies grown with corn.

Round her eyes her tresses fell,
Which were blackest none could tell,
But long lashes veiled a light,
That had else been all too bright.

And her hat, with shady brim,
Made her tressy forehead dim;—
Thus she stood amid the stooks,
Praising God with sweetest looks:—

Sure, I said, heaven did not mean,
Where I reap thou shouldst but glean,
Lay thy sheaf adown and come,
Share my harvest and my home.
  • Sing through with an attentiveness to diction stretching initial vowels and enunciating strong consonants.
  • Make every vowel as beautiful as possible. 
  • Avoid over singing at p. 6, mm. 32-34. The A (ah) should be an expression of awe and restrained passion.
  • Barnum's inserted Alleluia in mm. 48-51 should be an expression of almost reverent praise of another person.
  • Focus on dynamics and tempi.
  • Make it seductive in the purest sense.
I'm Gonna Sing 'Til the Spirit Moves
  • I want to hear all the solo lines on the first page
  • Please work on memorization
  • Make sure the "windy" sections on p. 7, mm. 35-43 are accurate and expressive. More focused and rhythmic BASS in that section. 
Alleluia
  • Practice going into the sudden dynamic and harmonic changes such as mm. 13, 26, 42, 50
  • Each section be aware of singing expressively together noting all markings
  • Practice the crescendo poco a poco starting pp at m. 46 to the eventual ff at 63. Make it feel organic. And avoid over singing. 
  • As you get louder, broaden your vowels a bit.
The Cuckoo
  • Sing through memorized



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