Rehearsal Blog Update - 10/10/2013

Dear Ensemble and Vocalise Parents and Singers,

Hope you’re enjoying this beautiful fall afternoon! There are several announcements this week:

Emails

All Vocalise singers MUST be on the vocalise@cantabile.org email list with an email address that they check daily. If you did not receive emails from me this week about sonicfit, you are still not on the list. 

Similarly, at least one person from every ensemble family (either the chorister or a parent) must be on the ensemble@cantabile.org email list. We strongly encourage all Ensemble singers who check email regularly to be on the list. If your Ensemble family member of choice did not receive the messages from me this week about the Agnus Dei recording, you are still not on the list.

If you are not receiving the emails mentioned above, you must contact cassie@cantabile.org immediately. You are missing out on important notifications!

New Upcoming Concerts

A bit of information about a couple concerts that will be added to our calendar shortly:

Oct 31^st  - Optional hallowe’en concert at Stanford involving costumes, an orchestra, and a “monster bash”! There will be a poll shortly to see who is free for this spectacularly spooky evening of singing. :)

Nov 24^th - Annual afternoon tree-lighting concert at Pier 39 in San Francisco. More info coming soon!

Sonicfit Musicianship Program

Vocalise has already started Cantabile’s new online musicianship program and Ensemble is next!

Sonicfit is the brainchild of composer, conductor, and music educator Dr. Jeff Morton, who currently works as a choir director and theory instructor here in the Bay Area. Cantabile is using Dr. Morton’s program to provide online theory instruction to our singers.

Vocalise singers, please make sure that you read all emails regarding sonicfit thoroughly, and that those of you who did not receive a message exempting you from the program are already registered and working on this week’s assignment due Monday, October 14^th.

Ensemble singers, you will be receiving instructions next week via email about how to register and begin your coursework.

Other Reminders

1. Don’t forget to a) bring your water bottles, and b) take them home at the end of the night! There is a box full of bottles that singers have left at the church. Check the box if your water bottle is missing!

2. There is a large, black plastic bin where parents can both drop off gently-used uniforms, and go shopping for them.

What to Practice

ENSEMBLE

Ensemble A: you have theory homework this week! Now that we’ve gone over your key signatures test, please re-do it and hand it in next Wednesday for me to mark again. If you have any questions about the material, please email me immediately.

Agnus Dei: listen to the recording I sent you this week and make sure that all notes and rhythms are perfect by next week so that we can start to make real music with it. :)

When Christmas Comes to Town: In case any of you haven’t see the movie Polar Express, the song is below in two forms:

Scene from the movie

Choral arrangement

VOCALISE

Don’t forget to finish your work on sonicfit.com!

Mass No. 6: New this week. Here are the recordings I found on youtube:

Kyrie

Gloria

Sanctus-Benedictus

Agnus Dei

Happy Practicing!

Rehearsal Blog Update 10/02/2013

Dear Ensemble and Vocalise Singers and Families,

Fall is officially here, which means we're just over two months away from the holiday concert!

A couple notes:

- Many of you are leaving water bottles and music binders (!) behind. Please make sure that you have all of your belongings with you before you leave. You can't practice very well without your music!
- Don't forget to sign in when you arrive! The sign-in table is placed right at the door and you must visit it before coming in to put down your stuff.


What to Practice

VOCALISE

The Snow: We talked about infusing some drama into the piece! Think of it as a mini opera and tell the story in an exciting way. To do this, you must first of all pronounce every consonant - especially the ones at the beginnings and ends of words. The audience will not get excited about a story if they can't understand what you're saying! Use the consonants to add character to the words - the ft in soft, for example, actually makes the word sound soft. Next, remember that quiet does not have to equal boring - you can still put intensity behind your sound on dramatic phrases like "O snow in thy soft grave" and "thou'rt white no more". And finally, think about the mood you are trying to create in each moment. For example, add warmth and richness in your tone on the word soul. Be gentle and light in "then as the snow all pure" to reflect that purity in your sound.

We talked in general about times in the music when a crescendo is happening across different parts. An example is on page 6-7, where the S2s enter first, followed by the As, then the S2s again, and then the S1s. Each time a new voice part enters, that part's line must be louder than the previous part's line in order to create the crescendo. You must always listen to what the other voices are doing and react/build on what you hear musically. You cannot perform your lines in isolation of the other parts.

We also talked about how to approach moments where the music is peaking in excitement. During these moments, the S1s often have high notes, while the other parts have notes that are in their normal range. This means that it's easier for S1s to notice when an "exciting part" is coming. S2s and As, it's important to notice when the S1s are leading up to a high note so that you can also get musically excited by crescendoing simultaneously with them. For them, a crescendo will be automatic - you will have to create one more deliberately. Examples are measure 13, 37, *49*, 53, and 67.

The Angel: We added words this week. Practice your part slowly with the text and make sure you are shaping the vowels in the way that Elena showed you. In general, you will use many dark, and round vowels.

ENSEMBLE

Call of Wisdom: Keep listening to the youtube recording to help you. It's coming along nicely, but it could be more secure.

Call of Wisdom on youtube

Donkey Riding: S1s, practice page 43 to the end and make sure you're secure with the notes by next week. Here was the recording I posted last time:

Donkey Carol on youtube

Both parts - practice the last page. Make sure you know your notes on "alleluia, Christ is born today".

Agnus Dei: Page 8 is the most challenging, so focus on that this week. A few points:

- In your score, change the eighth notes in measure 32 from a straight rhythm to a dotted rhythm.
- Remember that the D in measure 34 comes on beat 2!
- In measure 36, you land on the B natural on the first beat.
- In measure 39, we practiced the rhythm of the "mi-se" (of "mi-se-re-re") - it's "three-and-a".

That's all for now, folks! Have a great weekend, and happy practicing!

Important Notes from the Office

Dear Ensemble & Vocalise Singers and Families,

This post is regarding Foothills College Arts Alliance (required for singers aged 14 & up), and Palazzo Pants uniform orders.


FOOTHILL COLLEGE ARTS ALLIANCE

Cantabile Youth Singers is part of the Foothills College Arts Alliance Program. We need your help and participation to ensure that Cantabile remains in good standing as an accredited provider of music instruction at the community college level. This process is slightly tedious and requires multiple steps, but we have done our best to ensure that the instructions are clear and easy to follow.  Please review the information below.  We thank you in advance for your time and follow-through. We will gladly reimburse your $100 deposit for completing these steps, and you may also be eligible to receive college credit.

Step 1: Register as a new student online:
http://www.cccapply.org/applications/CCCApply/apply/Foothill_College.html

This does not cost any money. If the registration deadline for the fall quarter has past, do not worry; you can still register for winter and spring (and even summer for those who are going to Italy with Cantabile).

Step 2: Email info@cantabile.org with your registration ID number.

Step 3: Complete the Foothills Permission form (sent to you as an email attachment) and fill in Course Number:  PA 121.04. A parent or guardian must sign the form.

Step 4: Have your school principal or administrator sign the form and return it to you.

Step 5:  Bring the completed form to rehearsal (and hand it to Jordan Hopkins, Cassie Luftspring, Laura Steuer or Melanie Tobias).


PALAZZO PANTS ORDERS

As you know, we order the Palazzo Pants in bulk for our singers and will bill you upon receiving the shipment. You are responsible for purchasing all other uniform items. Below is a list of orders received so far. If you are new to Ensemble or Vocalise and your name does not appear below, please send in your order ASAP.

Andersen, Sophie
Babu, Lara
Cheung, Kristin
Dewees, Sophie
Domokos, Sylvana
Guibord, Megan
Huang, Alyssa
Mani, Shreya
Merriam, Hilary
Oft, Anna
Pao, Jasmine
Tobias, Hana
Towle, Nimue
Tsikina, Katherine
Wei, Katherine
Wright , Anna
Xu, Alicia

For additional information visit: http://cantabile.org/index.php/tickets-a-store/uniforms.html

Thank you for reading this very important post!  If you have any questions, please email info@cantabile.org.

Rehearsal Blog Update 09/25/2013

Dear Singers and Parents,

Ensemble and Vocalise had an amazing weekend at Cantabile’s annual Fall Retreat! We sang songs, played games, put on skits, drank hot chocolate, and put on a wonderful concert for our families. A great, big thank you to our chaperones for their much-appreciated help:

Herman Chui

Kathryn Feinberg

Evan Goldenberg

Cynthia Howard

Sudha Mani

Melanie Tobias

Joannie Wang

Joy Wu

And a special thank you to Laura Steuer and Emi Ishida for their extra help with camp-related tasks as well.

What to Practice

VOCALISE

You began working on The Snow and Noel at camp. Here are some youtube videos to help you familiarize yourselves with the music:

Cantabile's Vocalise from 2009 singing The Snow

Noel (SATB version)

Young men with changing/changed voices who would like to try out for the opening solo, start practicing!

Salve Regina: We got great work done on this at camp. Now that you're familiar with the notes and rhythms, and it's starting to sound musical, it's time to memorize it! Many of you had your heads in your scores at the camp concert, but if everyone is watching, we will create some truly beautiful music together! Let's aim for an October 7th memorization deadline. You can do it!

ENSEMBLE

You also began working on Noel at camp: Noel (SATB version)

Young men with changing/changed voices who are interested the opening solo, start practicing!

Agnus Dei: Thank you for engaging in such concentrated work on this piece at the last rehearsal! For next week, please make sure that you have the following things marked in your score with a pencil:

- All rests circled - don't sing in them!
- As much solfege written in as you can do - especially in bars 44-49
- Bar 32 beat 3, circle "mi-se" to remember that the rhythm is straight, not dotted
- Bars 33-36 write in the counts, and circle the D in bar 34 to remember that it comes on beat 2


Happy practicing, and see you next week!

Rehearsal Blog Update 09/18/2013

Dear Singers and Parents,

We're just one day away from the Fall Retreat at Camp Jones Gulch! Make sure to check your email throughout the day and tomorrow morning for important camp-related information.

The choir parents and artistic staff would like to remind all families to pick up your children promptly when rehearsal is over: 8:15pm for Vocalise, 7:00pm for Ensemble A, and 7:30pm for Ensemble B. Our liability coverage requires that staff and/or parent volunteers wait on site until all students are picked up, but many of our staff/volunteers also need to take their own children home or return to their families as soon as possible. If you know in advance that you will not be able to pick your children up at the times listed above, please make alternative pick-up arrangements. If an emergency or unforeseen circumstance comes up on the evening of a rehearsal and significant lateness is unavoidable, please attempt to email cassie@cantabile.org. Thank you for your cooperation.

Also, for any singers reading, please make sure that your parents have seen the snack assignment list. For questions from Vocalise parents about the list, please email laurafs@juno.com. For questions about the list from Ensemble, please email melanie@cantabile.org.


What to Practice

This week, most of your practicing will be done at camp, so this section of the blog will be shorter than usual.

ENSEMBLE

Listen as many times as possible to The Angels Will Guide You Home. Those of you who have not yet downloaded it, you should be able to now. Please email cassie@cantabile.org if you cannot access the file. Note that the descant part can be found on the S1 recording, so anyone who is assigned to that part in the future must download the S1 part to practice it.

More recordings will be coming soon after camp!

VOCALISE

We had a wonderful rehearsal with Susan McMane this week. She talked a lot about diction - specifically about pronouncing the consonants that you can sing on, like m, n, r, l, v, and the sound "ng". Perhaps one of the most important examples of this was vibrating the "v" sounds in Vivos Voco. Also in Vivos, she talked about maintaining energy through the long notes in order to keep the piece exciting and the sound supported. In Salve Regina, she talked again about singing on consonants, and also about word stresses. Sometimes, the stressed syllables is not on a beat that you would expect - don't stress a syllable that should be unstressed just because it's "on the beat"!

That's all for now! Looking forward to seeing all of you tomorrow! Don't forget your music binder, your water bottle, and your pencil! :)

Rehearsal Blog Update 09/12/2013

Dear Singers and Parents,

Thank you all for your attendance at this week's parent meetings. You should all have received an email from the office following the meeting regarding forms and upcoming events. Please be sure to check your inboxes! A few extra-important things:

Commitment Form

It is extremely important that we know well in advance when singers will be absent for both regular rehearsals and major Cantabile events. The deadline to submit the commitment form is September 13th. Please click here fill out the form online if you haven't already submitted it.

Fall Retreat

Our annual fall retreat is coming up fast! Be sure to submit all retreat forms received in person at the meeting or by email as soon as possible. Please note that attendance at the fall retreat is mandatory. If you have a scheduling conflict that cannot be resolved, contact Elena Sharkova immediately at elena@cantabile.org

Additional reminders:

- Parents, let Laura know if you did not receive the snack list. If you are a singer reading this, please remind your parents to do so!

- Singers, bring in your outgrown, gently-worn, clean concert uniforms (black pants and shirt for boys, black palazzo pants and blouse for girls) and give them to Laura to pass on to other singers.

And now, for the section of the blog you've all been waiting for...

What to Practice

ENSEMBLE

Jingle Bell Swing: This is coming along nicely! Review the solfege we wrote from the bottom of page two to the middle of page three and use it to help you practice. Then go ahead and write in the solfege for the rest of the piece. (There may be one or two accidentals that you' aren't sure how to label, but don't worry about those - just work around them and do what you know how to do.) Remember that "do" is Bb! :)

Donkey Carol: One of my favourite carols! Don't worry about the notes this week, just practice speaking the rhythm. Circle the measures where the time signature changes from 5/8 to something else! Then check out the video below - a cool SATB orchestrated version of the whole piece:

Adult Choir Donkey Carol with orchestra on youtube

The Angels will guide you home: I have recorded your parts for you - coming soon to your inboxes!

VOCALISE

Call of Wisdom: Below is the performance that Elena was talking about during rehearsal. Listen and follow along with your score:

Call of Wisdom on youtube

Vivos Vico: Practice speaking the rhythm on page 6 by tapping the beat in 8th notes. Keeping the beat in 8ths will help you transition from 4/4 (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +) to 7/8 (123-45-67) and back to 4/4 at the bottom of the page. You're getting pretty familiar with the notes - your next job is to sound confident singing them! When you go over your part at home, sing slowly at first to make sure you are secure, then speed up your part as much as possible so you become comfortable with it. Those who have been asked to sing the descant at the end, have a good look at that part before the next rehearsal because we'll want to put it in!

Salve Regina: Speak the text of the entire piece very fast. During rehearsal, it can feel like the piece gets "stuck in the mud" - that you are dragging because you're still getting used to the words. The notes are doing well so just focus on the words this week!

Aria by Bach: There are two youtube clips to check out. The first is a recording with strings and harpsichord (one of the keyboard instruments that was used during the Baroque period). Listen to which instrument is performing your part and think about what qualities you will want to give your voice in order to imitate the sound of the instrument (i.e. how can the soprano 1s sound more like a first violin?).

Aria Instrumental Version on youtube

And the second clip is of the Swingle Singers performing the piece:

Aria by Swingle Singers on youtube


And finally, this week's secret word is allegro. ;)

Happy practicing and see you next week!

Rehearsal Blog Update 09/4/2013

Dear Singers and Parents,

It has been a great second week! As we settle into our routines for the season, here are a few important reminders/announcements: 

• Vocalise Change in Rehearsal Time: 5:30-8:15pm. Please arrive next week by 5:25pm and be ready for the downbeat at 5:30pm!

• Ensemble A and B Split: you should all know whether you will arrive next week at 4:25pm for Musicianship A, or need to stay until 7:30pm for Musicianship B. If you do not know your placement, please email cassie@cantabile.org immediately.

• All singers: bring your own pencils and water bottles every week from now on.

• Vocalise singers: check with your parents to see if they have received the Vocalise Fall Snack assignment list, organized by student’s last name. If not, please immediately email Laura Steuer at laurafs@juno.com

What to Practice

ENSEMBLE

The Angels Will Guide You Home: We started the three-part sections this week. You will soon receive an email from me containing recordings of your parts, to make practicing easier. In the meantime, here was the youtube video I posted last week to help you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABjRX5ybxPE

Those of you who have access to a piano, spend some time plunking out your part on pages 4 and 5 – don’t forget to think about the key signature when you do this!

Jingle Bell Swing: Be careful when practicing to note the difference between eighth rests and quarter rests. Sometimes you want to be too jazzy and turn the quarter rests into eighths, but those quarter rests are longer than you think! One spot in particular to watch is the quarter rest between “jingle” and “bell swing-a-long”. Go through the music and circle the quarter rests. Then speak the text in rhythm while tapping the beat with your hand or foot.

Here’s the youtube video from last week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU7zcKFf8Kw

VOCALISE

The Angel: Try practicing this piece several different ways – sing-count, sing on a “neutral syllable” (like lalala or dododo), speak the text in rhythm, or try solfege during the E major sections. We talked about how in romantic music, key changes and chromaticism bring changes in color and therefore in mood or character. Isn’t it interesting how many times Rachmaninoff changes keys in this piece? CHALLENGE: Go through the music and see if you can mark all of the key changes.

Here is a video of a women’s chorus performing this piece just under the tempo that we took it in rehearsal. The choir is even called “Vocalisa” - how fitting!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBF3giLZ_NA

Salve Regina: In performance, this will move and feel flexible. As you become more comfortable with the pitches, practice singing your part at a very fast speed – you will need to become so comfortable with the text and rhythm that you can constantly watch the conductor and make all of the subtle tempo and dynamic fluctuations that you may see.

Here is a different recording of the Busto than the one I gave you last week. You will notice that this choir pronounces the words a little differently than we do – that’s alright. Just listen to how flexible this performance is!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQgdveQIk0A

Vivos Voco: Circle ALL of the time signature changes in the music. If there is a change at the top of a page, go back a page and write in a reminder for yourself at the bottom of the previous page. You never want to be surprised by a meter change. Never stop counting!

Here is the recording from last week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=103b5rUY4BY

Happy practicing, and see you next week!