Sunday, December 9, 2007

Concert today

My choir RCCNY will give the first of two concerts today. We will perform at Saint Ignatius of Antioch, which is a really cool little Anglican church on west 87th street.

Here is the program. In this program we span the earliest written chants to late 20th century compositions.

First Half

  • Velichanie Rojdestvu: A sort of plainchant, russian style. After the first time through we harmonize more progressively each time. Men's voices only. Composer unkown.
  • Nyne otposh'ayeshi: A very traditional russian-orthodox four part chant (don't know what these are officially known as). Men's voices only. Composer unknown.
  • Rojdestvenskiy concert: Strokin (?-1887). This means "Christmas concert" and is a beautiful four-part piece for all voices.
  • Let My Prayer Arise: Famous Bass solo with choir accompaniment by Chesnokov (1877-1944)
  • Milost' Mira: A Mercy of Peace, Alexandr Yegorov (1864 - 1956).
  • Svete Tikhiy: Quiet Light. Alexandr Yegorov. These pieces are amazing and tuning them is a joy. All voices, typically 6-7 parts.


Second Half

  • Slava vo vyshnih Bogu: Glory to God in the Highest. Bortnyansky (1751-1825). a boroque style concerto for two mixed choirs 4 parts each. This is a paired down group of 16, not all of us will sing.
  • Cherubic Hymn: Grechaninov (1864-1956). Just amazingly beautiful and simple. Mostly four parts.
  • Four Ukranian Carols: The name speaks for itself.
  • Aliluya: Modern Ukranian composer Skripnik (living). Mix between sacred traditional and gospel.
  • Sh'edrik: Known as "Carol of the Bells" in the west, but actually is about a little Ukranian bird :)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

How did it go? sure wish I could have been there to hear the concert! You'll just have to sing your part when you come home next!

Erin Sheldon said...

It was good! One more Wed. night. I'll blog about it more after that (and job apps, the other thing keeping me busy)