Concert Choir selected for TMEA!

I just received word this morning that the Concert Choir has been selected to perform for the Tennessee Music Educators Association convention in April! This is a tremendous honor, and I am so proud of you!

For those of you who don't know what this is...
Each year choirs, bands, and orchestras from all over Tennessee send in tapes of their performances to audition for a performing slot at the state music educators convention. A panel of judges listens to the tapes and selects only a few of the VERY BEST ensembles to perform. And you are one of them!

I'm not crazy about sports, but I'll go ahead and use a sports analogy. It's sort of like winning the conference championship and going to the regional playoffs.

Congratulations!
RCB

P.S. The convention is April 16-19. I'll let you know as soon as we have a specific performance date and time. We'll be performing at the Nashville Convention Center.

Concert Choir at chapel today

Reminder:
Concert Choir at Chapel 1:00 today
Blue shirts/khakis
Hugo Distler "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty"

See you then!
RCB

Singers at Laity Banquet tonight

Singers - I talked with the person in charge of the banquet tonight, and they'd like to start the program between 6:45 and 7:00. So let's do this:

Let's meet at 6:40 in the Eagle's Nest to warm up briefly. Those of you assisting Dr. Goff with the Lalania Vaughan program, just zip over quickly as soon as you're done. Wear "dressy casual" clothes like we do for chapel services. We'll be performing the pieces we ran through on Thursday plus "Snow" and "My Love Dwelt in a Northern Land"--about 20 minutes worth of music. You'll be free to go once we're done.

If you have any questions, call me on my cell at 343-0620. See you this evening!

Calendar addition for Singers

Hey Lambuth Singers,

The President and Development people asked me this morning about having the Singers perform for the Alumni Banquet again this year. It's on Friday night of Homecoming Weekend. They noticed that it's a long time to sit around, so they proposed that we come at the end to sing a few things plus the Alma Mater/Irish Blessing. I'll let you know the specific time ASAP, but I anticipate being there about 8:00 p.m. and getting done by 9:00 or so.

Your "dream" music building

We are having meetings soon with an architectural firm to discuss the possibility of renovating Epworth Hall for use as a music facility. The firm is asking us, "If you had your ideal music building, what would be in it?"

I'd like to pass this question on to you - particularly music majors, but also everyone else who attends classes or rehearsals in our current rooms. What would you like to include in your ideal musical learning environment?

Any and all comments appreciated!

Several announcements, reminders

Several things are coming up so I thought I'd remind you here:

Sunday, Oct. 7 - 6:30 p.m., Ballroom -

• Singers perform for District Methodist Laity Banquet
• dress is "dressy casual"

Tuesday, Oct. 9 -

• new members - sing Alma Mater/Irish Blessing for me between now and then
• 1:00 p.m. - Singers sing for chapel service - "dressy casual
• "Ye Shall Have a Song" - notes completely learned by rehearsal time!
  

Thursday, Oct. 18 - 6:00 p.m., Chapel -

• Community Open House - Concert Choir performs

Concert Choir has 11 rehearsals left until tour!

Good recording session Singers!

Singers,

What FINE, MUSICAL singing you guys did yesterday! I was really pleased with the intonation, the text shaping, and particularly the blend, which was the best I've heard so far this semester. Thanks to Dr. Goff for lugging his gear over to record us! It's too bad we couldn't solve the AC hiss problem yesterday. You learn something new every day about how the Lambuth buildings are put together! We'll talk with Maintenance to get it turned off for our Concert Choir session next Thursday--or we may record in the Chapel, where I know how to turn the AC off!

Dr. Goff will be using the stuff we recorded to teach his productions class how to splice and cross-fade recording takes next week. As soon as they have it done, I'll post it online so you can listen.

Have a good weekend!
RCB

More about Hugo Distler

As I mentioned in rehearsal, Hugo Distler's life ended tragically by his own hand. Here's a link to a brief Wikipedia article about him if you'd like to read more detail.

P.S. - Altos, I was really pleased with the progress on "Ye Shall Have a Song" yesterday. Your parts are the hardest because they jump octaves and criss-cross so much, but it sounds like we have things pretty solid now.

Resurrection of the Lambuth choir blog!

As one of my colleagues has noted, I've allowed this blog to "languish into obscurity" this past semester. I'm going to correct that and plan to log on MUCH more often this year to post announcements, talk about choir events, and muse about music and life in general. I encourage you to stop by frequently, read my posts, and add comments of your own!

You Having Walked This Earth

Hi everyone,

Our recording of "You Having Walked This Earth" is now featured on the composer's website! Go to www.stephensmusic.com and you'll see a link on the home page.

I'm still fighting my upper respiratory infection--the Zithromax pack doesn't seem to be doing the job. Hopefully I'll be feeling better by Monday.

RCB

Classical/popular crossovers

Hi all,

I subscribe to a Yahoo news feed that looks up any news articles about choral music. Follow the link to read an interesting article about popular artists who cross over into what they think is "classical music".

RCB

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a Merry Christmas - I'm looking forward to more music-making with you in the coming year!

RCB

Praises from composer of "You Having Walked This Earth"

Hi all,

This morning I sent an MP3 of our recording session from last week to Joseph Stephens, the composer of "You Having Walked This Earth". Here's his reply:

Dear Dr. Bernhardt and Choir,

A truly amazing performance of "You having walked..."!!! I was overjoyed to hear your recording. I will try to get it on my website and list you guys as the performers. That all depends on my internet provider. Anyway, thanks so much for doing my stuff. It was great to hear that piece in particular because it is one I believe in greatly.

Have a great holiday season and keep up the good work.

Joe Stephens

His website is www.stephensmusic.com. I'll check it periodically and let you know when you guys are listed.

Cheers!
RCB

Thanks everyone!

Dear Friends,

Thank you so much for your performance last night! You all sang extremely well--particularly the Prayer of St. Patrick, which was really quite stunning from where I stood. I received numerous compliments about the quality of your singing from folks in the congregation.

And thank you for a great semester! I've really enjoyed working with you and am SO PROUD of your musical accomplishments. You don't often hear choirs from colleges of our size that sing as well as you do. Keep up the good work!

A couple of final housekeeping notices:

(1) If you haven't handed in choir music yet, please bring it down to the choir room and place it on the long table so we can start filing things away.

(2) I will be in NYC performing with a professional choir at Carnegie Hall the first week of January, won't be here the first week of classes. I'll have one of the other music faculty take the first rehearsal, just to have you check in and receive music. Your first assignment will be to learn one of the easier pieces (or a portion of one) on your own with study files that will be placed on the website. Piece to be announced later.

(3) Be sure to check the departmental calendar on the website so you can clear any conflicts with our performance schedule.

Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

RCB

Some holiday cheer...

Hi gang,

Some really nice singing yesterday! I was pleased overall with how the recordings came out, particularly since we only did 1-2 takes of each.

I've edited the Concert Choir tracks and have put them online--click the links below if you want to hear them. (Right click to save them to your computer.)

Prayer of St. Patrick
'Tis You That Are the Music
You Having Walked This Earth

CHRISTMAS BONUS:
If you enjoyed hearing Kellye Cash singing "O Holy Night" at the Jackson Symphony pops concert, click here to hear one even more stunning! :)

See you Sunday at 6 p.m. in the Ballroom. Happy Holidays!
RCB

Great tour!

Hey gang,

Thank you SO MUCH for all your hard work on Leg 1 of our tour! I really appreciate your hard work, energy, and enthusiasm!

It's always so rewarding for me to see how much the tour program matures and takes on new life with each performance. While it's important to keep striving for improved performances, it's also important to look back, take stock of how far you've come, and realize what a high level of musicianship you've displayed. Several choir alums from 5-6 years ago were in attendance at last night's concert, and they were absolutely awestruck by your performance. I would never have attempted many of the pieces on this year's program 5 years ago.

It's EXTREMELY rare to hear choirs from a school of less than 1,000 students perform at the level you do. It just doesn't happen! You should feel proud that you can hold your own with schools that have 10 times the number of students (and more money and resources to boot).

Housekeeping announcements:

1. We will NOT have Lambuth Singers or Choral Methods today (Wed. 11/15).

2. We WILL have Concert Choir tomorrow (Thurs. 11/16), so we can get the "Many Moods" medley under our belts for the Jackson Symphony performance.

2. Friday--be ready to load the bus at 9:15! We'll eat lunch in Memphis at 11:00 and then spend a little time getting used to the Harding Academy auditorium while the All-SW students are at lunch. We perform at 1:30 for 20 minutes or so.

Thanks again, everyone! See you tomorrow afternoon!

Choir tour - miscellaneous announcements

Hey gang,

As I mentioned in rehearsal last week, the cost for the Space Center is $11 per person. I need that money by Friday of this week so I can deposit in the choir account.

Your lodging and meals are covered by our department. For the 4 meals not provided by churches or hotel, each of you will be given $30.00. Bring extra money if you want to eat more "upscale".

Since both high school gigs are on one day (Monday 11/13) and there isn't a church performance that evening, we're going to wear formal black concert attire at the high schools as well.

First Sopranos: Several of you forgot to come by to work with me on Friday! Pop by sometime tomorrow (Tuesday)--it will really help unify the section sound for tour!

RCB

Addition to calendar - Nov. 30

Hey everybody,

At the request of President Zuker, we have been asked to perform as part of a Christmas program that will be videotaped for broadcast on JEA's Eplus channel (local cable system). We will meet at Liberty Technological Magnet High School here in Jackson at 11:00 a.m. on November 30, and will be done by 11:45. I'll have more details (repertoire to be videotaped, directions, etc.) as we get closer to the date.

RCB

Wikipedia article on my hometown

I looked up my hometown on Wikipedia this morning:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogersville,_Missouri

This is what one contributor has to say about the town:

Rogersville is home to many intelligent and forward-thinking children of all ages. They love Wikipedia. They don't love Rogersville. They feel trapped. They are high.

Funny, but also true. This shows, however, that you can't always trust Internet sources when researching your term papers!

Rooming and bus signup for tour

Hey gang,

I've posted signup sheets for the buses and housing on tour. They're located on the big departmental bulletin board right inside the west end doors of the Chapel. Could you stop by when you get a free moment and sign up? Thanks! - RCB