GRANDKIDS

Well Laura, Lily and Ben are here. They arrived from Denver last night. The games have begun.
So far we have gone swimming at the rec center here in town. Both kids love the water. At home Lily has taken swimming lessons to get used to the water. We have played with blocks and built stuff. They rode scooters on our driveway. We introduced them to marbleworks - a building set our kids used when they were kids. And now we are watching Shaun the Sheep videos. Pretty soon is bedtime for the kids.
Tomorrow we plan to drive to the hot springs in Thermopolis for more swimming. It will be fun.

CARMINA BURANA REVISITED

Rehearsals are going well.
The longer we are into this piece the more I am learning to love it. Floret Silva, Swaz Hie Gat Umbe, and others are gorgeous. The soprano /alto parts just soar so gently away. Then the bass/ tenors come in and provide a beautiful lower sound. Musically they are fairly easy.

Then there is In Taberna Quando Sumus. Man it goes fast. Spitting out those unfamiliar words in staccato and super fast is a challenge. Our director told us that we have got to work on it on our own apart from rehearsals. We are to learn little phrases at a time slower than performance speed. Then we are to gradually take it faster and faster until the words and rhythms just spew forth from our mouths.

This is exactly what he told us during rehearsals for The Music Man. I didn't think I was ever going to get my lines that had to be delivered very quickly. I practiced like he suggested and they did come. You get to the point where you are saying the lines without really knowing what you are saying. They are simply sounds that go together.

Our performance is going to be here before we know it. We were informed again how musicians from all over the state are joining us for the performance. It should be great fun.

O FORTUNA (CARMINA BURANA)

Carmina Burana is so different than I thought. Read the Wikipedia excerpt that follows:

"Carmina Burana (/ˈkɑrmɨnə bʊˈrɑːnə/; Latin for "Songs from Beuern" ("Beuern" is short for Benediktbeuern) is the name given to a manuscript of 254 poems and dramatic texts mostly from the 11th or 12th century, although some are from the 13th century. The pieces are mostly bawdy, irreverent, and satirical. They were written principally in Medieval Latin; a few in Middle High German, and some with traces of Old French or Provençal. Some are macaronic, a mixture of Latin and German or French vernacular."

First of all I didn't know any of that. I thought O Fortuna was it - the only piece. I had only heard that piece. So to discover it is so much more was surprising. It is composed of 25 sections with the first and last sections being the same. The other surprising thing is that it is so beautiful. Musically it is not difficult. The lyrics though are in Medieval Latin and Middle High German so are a bit different from other Latin pieces I have sung. I love singing in Latin for some reason. Usually though the songs I have sung have been sacred pieces. The difficulty in this piece is the speed of some pieces. Spitting out unfamiliar words very quickly poses some problems but we are working at it.

A web site called Cyberbass contains midi files of each of our parts in Carmina Burana and other pieces as well. I am using it to practice.

Our performance is in 8 weeks so we need to work outside of rehearsal to pull this off. Our director is retiring from his directorship after 35 years so this is his last big performance. He has invited former students and choirs from around the state to join us so it can be a mass choir. It should be very exciting.

FINAL PERFORMANCE

The Music Man will be over in an hour or so. We are leaving it "all on the floor." I believe that is theatre talk for giving it everything you got. It is probably bad luck to say too much at this time.

It has been a great adventure. At first I didn't know how I was ever going to learn those lines. Well now I will never have to say them again. Some time in the future I bet I will listen to the DVD and sing along. It will be good memories. Some of the cast are students who will be graduating so I will probably never work with them again. Others will be in future productions so we will work together in the future.

We finished on a high note. It was a great audience with great energy. I believe there were 489. Over the course of the run maybe a dozen people from church came.

Once the folks cleared out it was time to strike the set. That was a lot of work. It meant we had to take everything apart. Most everyone stuck around. So with hammers, wrecking bars, drills and brute force we slowly worked at it. I left after 3 hours and there was still work to do.

When I got home I was really tired yet it wasn't long before I shaved.

I'm back.