On February 28th, 2019, I had the privilege of attending the American Choral Directors Association Conference with the Vancouver Youth Choir, one of 26 invited choirs (and the only Canadian choir) invited to perform at the conference. The conference is attended by approximately 4000 choral conductors, all of whom we had to perform in front of. We have been working tirelessly on our set since before Christmas and have performed it over 8 times in different settings to prepare to perform the same set twice in the same day for thousands of people who know and understand choral music, and the pressure was high.
The thing that’s unique and most challenging about the set we prepared for this performance was the drastic difference between each of the pieces – we start with a slow piece, to a modern, edgy piece with a lot of literal screaming and body percussion, followed by a German piece from the Romantic Era, then a Women’s’ piece from Georgia about political upheaval. The set then continues with an Indie Rock piece called Water Fountain, followed by an Icelandic dance song (which included real choreographed dance steps) and ended with a pop song called North by the band Sleeping At Last. All these pieces are not only different in character, but they also require drastically different sounds and to have to switch from one colour of sound to another in 10 seconds or less was something we worked really hard to master. The transition that was most difficult for most of us singers was between our second and third piece (From aggressive screaming and body percussion to a rich, serious toned Romantic Era piece.)
Our opening number was Ilus Ta Ei Ole by young Estonian composer Pärt Uusberg, a piece about love for homeland that starts with the Men section singing a repeated melody that outlines how bleak Estonia is while the Women section sings the same chord progression over, starting from a soft hum to a loud Ah before the piece abruptly stops and transitions into words that outline how beautiful estonia is and the melody line is passed on from one section to the next before the whole choir joins in to tie the piece together, building up to the shimmery chords in the climax before doing a decrescendo and taking the piece back down to an intimate stop. The thing that was so fun about this piece was getting to play with the dynamics and the finding different ways to interpret Pärt Uusberg’s writing – there are some incredibly intimate moments that required incredible delicacy, and there are also showy moments like the low bass notes in the opening of the piece as well as the climactic chor – and we had a lot of fun trying to find the most effective ways to deliver this incredible piece of writing. The most satisfying part of singing this piece is how we can always the climax near the end, and how a few bars before we get there, as we crescendo and sing our notes we would be able to tell whether or not we would perfectly tune the climax as the energy continues to build.
This is followed immediately by a piece called Fire by UBC Graduate Student Composer: Katerina Gimon. The piece is part of a larger work called Elements and has no words, just body percussion parts and peculiar sounds and screams that illustrate the energy of fire itself. This piece is incredibly fun to do but also vocally challenging, and having it placed so early in the set was something that made me nervous. It took a while for us to master the transitions from the first piece to this the to the next piece – as this piece requires not just a drastic change in sound but also an incredible change in physical energy. The thing we focused on the most while working on this was how to do everything with intent in order for the piece to sound energetic and fiery as opposed to just a piece with weird sounds. The key to performing this piece successfully was the full commitment from each and every singer not just with our voices, but also our body language, our faces, and our overall physical energy to propel the performance forward in order to do this incredible piece justice.
After 6 years in this choir and many fun performances along the way, this was truly one of the most high caliber and nerve wracking performances we’ve ever had to prepare, and I’ve never had more fun performing as I did that day. Given that it’s a National Choral Conference, we got to perform in one of the best spaces I’ve ever sung in: A beautiful concert hall like the Chan Centre or the Orpheum, but made especially for choral music (complete with built in wooden risers in a deep U-shaped curve with tons of space). In spaces like these usually the audience gets great sound quality, but as members of the choir it’s hard to hear ourselves and the people around us (for me personally, I usually hear myself a lot and not much of anyone else, making it difficult to tune or figure out if you’re singing too loudly or too softly). This space was didn’t just sound great for the audience – it sounded great for us too and was an incredibly comfortable stage to perform in as I was able to not only hear myself but also the people around me, and therefore was able to sing better and tune better and make better music. Getting to perform for an audience fo 4000 choral conductors also turned out to be a lot of fun – as there’s nothing quite as satisfying as getting to perform music you love and worked so hard on to be welcomed with cheers and standing ovations in a city where no one knew who we were.