Jubilate
Tonight, after Tim and I went out for supper, I headed off to the Grande Prairie Regional College, where, after an hour or so of hanging around and one quick rehearsal, we sang at the Encana Grande Prairie Music Festival. “We” here is Jubilate, the six-member group I’ve been singing with since about the middle of March. We sang two madrigals (words by Michelangelo, music by Jacob Arcadelt) and John Rutter’s “A Gaelic Blessing.”
I was pretty nervous about the concert (my gut is still in a knot), especially since (as I mentioned in my previous post) the concert was being adjudicated and the adjudicator had given out very few gold stars earlier in the week. In the middle of the first song, I heard and felt my voice break slightly, but no one else noticed, and, in spite of the fact that I was trembling a bit with nerves and adreniline, people said we all looked quite comfortable.
The adjudicator told us that hearing us made her homesick, since she sings with a small ensemble herself and loves renaissance and baroque music. All week, she’d been hammering groups on their dynamics: their louds weren’t loud enough and their softs weren’t soft enough. But mirable dictu, she didn’t say anything about that to us, which means we must have remembered not to bellow through the pianissimo parts. She had us work on a couple of things, but complemented us on our phrasing and blend, and (though I should blush to relate it) she also complemented “Mr. Bass” on his low E.