I have been in UBC Choirs for three years now, and have had some amazing musical experiences as a result. This year, as a member of the chamber choir, I have sung under the direction of the Masters of Conducting choral TA’s. On April 5th, following a week of International Music put on by the UBC School of Music, we performed at the Chan Centre alongside Choral Union and University Singers.
Chamber choir performed after intermission, and our set was conducted by Steven Hamilton, doubling as a his master’s thesis recital. We sang music from around the world, beginning with Dúlamán: a fast-paced and intense musical setting by Michael McGlynn of a Gaelic folk tale. Learning the Gaelic pronunciation was a daunting task, especially as a soloist, with an almost entirely syllabic text setting and alternating meters. It’s a piece that requires a lot of hard work to master, but when done properly, it can revive an audience post-intermission.
To calm both the choir and the audience down, next up was Aftonen by Hugo Alfven. The piece creates a musical painting of the peaceful Swedish countryside in the evening, and was a cool contrast to the intensity of Dúlamán.
Next we travelled to China for two folk songs, Diu Diu Dengand Mountain Song & Dancing Tune, arranged by Chen Yi. The first song began with the choir imitating the sound of a steam engine building speed, then continued to imitate the sounds of the train travelling through the mountains, such as the “Diu! Diu!” sounds made by water drops hitting the metal roof of a train. In the second piece, soloists sang of the beauty of their homeland, quietly accompanied by the choir. It then changed mood and turned into a celebratory dancing song, with a lot of vocal jumping and rhythmic intensity.
Three Australian Bush Songsby Iain Grandage, the only song that we sang in English, paints the landscape of the Australian bush from “Dawn” to “Sunset”. The piece requires the improvisation of Australian bird songs, and chamber choir did an amazing job of researching and imitating a wide variety of calls. Watching the performance played back online, I was astounded by how real all the bird songs sounded. Even the dramatic Kookaburra call, mastered by Andrea Ciona, sounded extremely realistic.
Chamber choir’s final song was Balleilakka, which was an absolute behemoth of a piece to learn. It is a musical number from the Kollywood – not Bollywood – film “Sivaji”, and was written by A.R. Rahman in the Tamil language. This piece, arranged for choir by Ethan Sperry, is a vibrant and fast-paced celebration of traditional Tamil culture and the childhood of the movie’s main character, featuring a tricky tongue-twister as the most electrifying moment of the song. After a couple of serious, quiet, mildly-stressful-to-sing pieces, this took away any nerves that had built up during our performance, and I could just enjoy myself knowing how much work we had put into mastering the text.
Much like MUSC 326, the UBC Choirs are made up of students from every faculty. As a biology major with a musical background, it means so much that I was able to continue with choral singing even after high school. Chamber choir is full of students who are committed to enriching their lives with music, and I am very proud to have been a part of such a special ensemble.