Saturday, July 24

In which the Festival Choruses perform, we split up for the final concert block, and the Festival concludes with huge parties.

According to our original schedule, we were supposed to check out of the hotel before the Festival Chorus performance and leave for Rochester immediately afterward. Anticipating we'd have trouble finding a safe place other than the hotel to keep a carload of valuable luggage, we decided to stay over another night, which allowed Dennis to stash his stuff in our room. This had the added benefit that we would be able to see the final concert block, attend the closing ceremonies if we chose to, and perhaps check out one or another of the parties GALA is famous for.

While Gary (

gmjambear) slept in, Dennis and I started off the day with breakfast at the Hyatt. Again it was a buffet, and a nice one too. Over breakfast we chatted with a fellow from San Francisco with the curious nickname of "Bootboy", who had been a choral conductor and was a member of the American Choral Director's Association, but was taking a break from conducting.

We had an abbreviated Festival Chorus rehearsal at 9:30 instead of the usual 9 AM, and the latter part of the rehearsal we were joined by the other Festival Choruses to rehearse the commissioned piece for the Closing Ceremonies that night. The logistics for this final mass-choir performance hadn't been revealed to us until Friday's rehearsal, and many of us thought the mass choir performance would follow the individual Festival Chorus performances at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier. My reaction was "oh great, if I tell Gary I have one more thing on my schedule for Saturday we're both going to scream!" In retrospect it really wasn't that bad.

We returned to the hotel to change for the concert and found the Rochester bus had left (as scheduled, which is why we drove in the first place) and Gary was already up and about (which surprised me as he'd nearly been up all night). We finished up just as the maids were about to clean the room, so we left them to do their work.

While waiting for the Festival Choruses' performance, Dennis and I got a chance to chat with Frank from Glória and congratulate him on their performance; also, we spoke with Gaetano ("Guy" for short, he'd had his badge changed because everyone was pronouncing it the French way that rhymes with "tree"). Guy was one of the folks from the NYCGMC who had a hand in commissioning the Sage Cycle, and he promised to send us a perusal copy if he could get our address. We also talked a bit about bear stuff; while Guy is very tan, handsome, and trim, he also sports a thick pelt of chest hair that was peeking out of his open collar. WOOF!

Unfortunately, the logistics of the Festival Choruses performances, both Friday and today, meant we couldn't hear much of the other groups. The Transgender/Queer Festival Chorus began the set, followed by the Women's Festival Chorus.
Our group, the Men's Festival Chorus, was next, and with about 80 men we were by far the largest of the Festival Choruses. We opened as we did at the Basilica with "Into the Fire" from The Scarlet Pimpernel. All those words at speed, plus all those baritone high D's (which is just about at the break in my voice) made it a bit of a challenge, but we pulled it off. Next was "I Believe", based on the anonymous writings of someone hiding from the Gestapo ("I believe in the sun even when it is not shining...") and set to music by Lon Beery. Oddly enough I've met Lon personally; he lives in East Rochester and is a friend of both my ex, Brian, and RGMC's accompanist, Tim. I think he'll appreciate hearing about his work being performed not only here but in the Basilica. We followed that up with "Jamaican Marketplace", in which one of the first tenors who is from the Caribbean and now lives in Boston, Gerry, taught some of the Jamaican accent to the chorus. (More on him later. ;-) Next was "When I Hear Music", which was also done by several choruses during the Festival proper, and was written by a student of Ohio State professor and Men's Glee Club director James Gallagher on the occasion of his retirement (and of course dedicated to him). We closed with an arrangement of the Turtles' "Happy Together" by our director, David Monseur from the Columbus GMC. David and I met when we were both attending Ohio State in the mid-eighties, and sang together in the Newman Center choir. Our set got a rousing response from the audience, and Gary told me someone apparently yelled "BIGMAC!" at the stage as we were leaving, though I don't recall hearing it over the applause. It's the thought that counts though. ;-)
The Festival Chorus block closed with the Mixed Festival Chorus, whose director hails from Sydney, Australia and who did a program of world music, some of which I got to hear at the Basilica. Well done.

As we were lining up for pictures we saw Cyril and Dale from RGMC who had also driven to Montreal and stayed over a bit to hear us. After pictures we met up with Gary, and I gave a card to some folks from the Orlando chorus who were interested in singing "I Am With You Always". Then we returned to the hotel to once more change out of concert drag. The evening performance would be come as you are, so we were glad of that (those white dress shirts were starting to get a little ripe.) This left no time for lunch, unfortunately.

For the final concert block we each had our own agenda. Dennis stayed in Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier for the whole block, to see Vancouver, the combined Renaissance City Men's and Women's Choruses from Pittsburgh (who were doing a commissioned work), the Transcendence Gospel Choir, and the San Francisco GMC. Gary and I started out in Theatre Maisonneuve, where we both saw Olé! from Ottawa, more of a show choir with lots of props and costumes (and featuring, of course, Gianluca ;-). Next came the combined set of Torontones and Rainbow Voices of Toronto -- as it happened, the former is a small ensemble of the latter, but only the smaller group actually came to Montreal so they combined their programs. Both groups are directed by a fellow named Mike who is also the proprietor of a B&B called "Mike's on Mutual" and whom we met in San Jose. They did a nice job on their comic numbers, "Celine" and "The Hot Dog Song", and on their arrangements of Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" and "I Will Remember You". Unfortunately they thought that combining their programs gave them extra time, and the stage crew doused the lights in the middle of their last number, a clear signal they'd run over by a lot. They were followed by Forte, the Toronto Men's Chorus, which only had an octet at this Festival but nonetheless did a fine job on their set of Broadway show tunes. At this point Gary left to hear the gospel choir and San Francisco. I stayed mostly to hear what Lehigh Valley was going to do with Weird Al Yankovic's "One More Minute", a song I'd brought up in RGMC music committee and was told "let's not go there". They went there. Oddly enough for a "men's chorus", they had a female tenor. I was more impressed with their rendition of "Momma, Look Sharp", a haunting tune I seem to recall hearkened back to the Civil War. The block closed with the Pink Singers from London, who did a fine job on a set of medleys from Gershwin, the Beach Boys, and James Bond films.

By the time the set finished and we got together it was nearly time to gather at le centre Sheraton for the closing ceremonies. Gary went off to eat, while Dennis and I got to the technical rehearsal for the closing ceremonies. All around we saw the singers from San Francisco in their stoles and choir robes -- we got to referring to them as the "San Franciscans". The final rehearsal was a bit of a fiasco. After all the meticulously prepared stage lighting and sound at Place-des-Arts, we were packed onto a small stage with spotlights in our eyes and no overhead lighting -- which, mind you, could not be corrected -- with the effect that it was difficult to see the conductor and impossible to read the music. This being the end of the week there were some frayed tempers in evidence, but when it came time for the actual performance it came off without a hitch. The piece we sang was "Arise, My Love" by Joan Szymko, based on the Song of Songs, "At The River", and the motto of this Festival: "Vive la musique, vive l'egalite" which means "Long live music, long live equality".

After the performance everyone filtered into the crowd. Dennis and I were simply starving, and we chose to go downstairs to the Sheraton's restaurant for dinner. Gary joined us and ordered something light as he'd already eaten. We could hear snippets of the other performances filtering down from the ballroom.

After dinner we went back upstairs and greeted people we'd met through the week. We saw Gerry from Boston. I introduced Gary to him -- they happen to have the same last name and they greeted one another like long-lost brothers. Dennis had a chat with Eric Lane Barnes while Gary introduced me to George, a bear from the London GMC whom he'd met at Bear Soup, and George introduced us to his partner Laurence, who is a published author. We also met "Big Rick" who stood out in the Pink Singers' performance, whose name is actually Cormac. How he got nicknamed Rick is a mystery.

The closing ceremonies were beginning to break up at this point so we went back to our hotel to drop off music and proceed to the Hyatt for San Francisco's party. It was crowded inside but they opened the door to a rooftop garden outside, where we took seats overlooking rue Jeanne-Mance and chatted about the week's events. We saw a trio of guys strolling by, two of whom were Kent and Brian from Washington, DC. Kent is a very handsome man with a neatly trimmed beard, and Brian is his partner and the artistic interpreter for GMCW. All in all, a quiet end to a busy day and a busier Festival. We returned to the hotel about midnight so as to be rested for the trip back.

Montreal, part huit

Saturday, July 24

no subject