bigmacbear (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bigmacbear) wrote2005-09-06 11:07 pm
bigmacbear) wrote2005-09-06 11:07 pm
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GALA Choruses Annual Conference
Last weekend I flew to Kansas City, MO with fellow Chorine and composer Dennis.
On arrival at the departure gate in Rochester we were treated to a bit of drama in which a young woman who had arrived at the gate between the time the jetway had been pulled back from the aircraft and the flight's departure begged, pleaded, threatened, and cajoled the gate agent to let her on the plane, all to no avail. At some point the words "if you continue yelling at me you won't get on a plane today" or similar were used.
We landed at Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport and proceeded to Concourse B where there is a food court. We had Gold Star Chili cheese coneys for lunch and went over to the gate for the KC flight. I was wearing my RGMC polo shirt and eventually a couple of guys came over and asked if we were on our way to GALA. They were representing a chorus in North Carolina. As it happened they were seated across the aisle from us on the next leg of the flight. When we landed and got our bags from baggage claim, the four of us hopped on the shuttle to our hotel.
Once we checked in at the Mariott Country Club Plaza, we registered for the conference and got a chance to chat with a number of artistic directors of choruses. Most importantly for me, I mentioned to the director and assistant director of the Seattle Men's Chorus, Dennis and Eric (both of whom I knew from meeting them at previous GALA Festivals) of my intention to move there in a few months. I expect that barring any issues with arranging for time off in a new job, I'll be singing with them come January -- knowing I'll be auditioning for Eric, I don't anticipate any trouble on that score.
Next we met up with our own board president, J.O., and Rich who is the artistic director of the North Coast Men's Chorus of Cleveland, and the four of us went out for dinner at the Golden Ox, which is just across the street from Kemper Arena -- where I'd performed back in 1989 with the Chorus of the Genesee at the SPEBSQSA National Competiton. Dinner was excellent.
After dinner we returned to the hotel for a welcoming reception, at which we got a chance to chat with Mark, a former RGMC member who now sings with Heartland Men's Chorus, one of the host choruses. It's been a long time since we last saw Mark and even longer since he moved. He's looking well.
Finally, after the reception we got to chatting in the hotel bar with a fellow named Logan from the Tampa Bay area who accompanies the local choral groups and would also be accompanying the Singers' Institute the next day.
We had breakfast in the hotel dining room, as we would for the remainder of the weekend. They had a breakfast buffet that featured made-to-order omelets, fresh fruit, fried potatoes (sliced or shredded on different days), sausage gravy and biscuits, and bacon and sausage among other things.
The Singers' Institute occupied much of the day on Friday. It was led by Tim Seelig, artistic director of the Turtle Creek Chorale, and dealt with such disparate topics as posture, breathing, tone color, myths about some terminology such as "moving the diaphragm" and "placing vowels in the mask", and a discussion about the three human activities that cause the vocal folds to close off (defecation, childbirth, and heavy lifting, all of which produce the same facial expression as well).
A box lunch was provided by the conference organizers, and as we settled down to eat someone called for a moment of silence for the chorus members still unaccounted for in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. While we ate, they presented a preview of the documentary filmed at GALA Festival VIIe in Montreal as well as a slideshow promoting Festival VIII to be held in Miami in July 2008.
After lunch the Singers' Institute continued for the remainder of the afternoon. After it concluded I went over to the nearby Office Depot to pick up a black folder to hold my music for the closing night performance, and stopped in at the gas station along the way to replace my broken sunglasses. Then we went on to the Plaza for dinner, which we ate at Figlio's. I had the capellini fra diavolo -- angel hair pasta with shrimp in a spicy sauce.
The evening's concert was held at the Unity Temple, a fairly historic old non-denominational church in the middle of the Plaza area. The host choruses as well as the small group, the HeartAches, performed very well. Of course, having had shrimp for dinner, I found the "God Hates Shrimp" sermon that accompanies "The Fundamental" a bit disconcerting but also uproariously funny. One other amusing touch: the decorative plasterwork on the organ case looks very much like male genitalia.
After the concert I decided to go on the pub crawl while Dennis chose to stay back at the hotel. Our first stop was Sidekicks, where a large crowd had gathered due to the gay rodeo also in town that weekend. After spending some time there with Logan and Mark we decided to move on to someplace less crowded. At that point we met up with Chris, the artistic director of Desert Voices in Tucson, who'd apparently just joined the pub crawl.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gmjambear and I had met Chris in Montreal. At 6'8" and in a Utilikilt, he can appear intimidating but has always been very friendly when I've been around him.
We went on to the upstairs bar at the Dixie Belle complex, whose name I can't exactly recall but sounds a lot like "Bootlickers" (which name Mark uses anyway, and he was wearing a T-shirt depicting one). This was much less crowded and I got a chance to try a local microbrew called Fat Tire Amber Ale, which was quite nice (even if I was calling it Flat Tire by the end of the evening).
The Singer's Weekend Chorus began rehearsing for Sunday night's closing concert. Three rehearsals each day, pretty much from 9 to 5 with some breaks. The director of the Heartland Men's Chorus, Joe Nadeau, also directed our chorus and we were accompanied by their accompanist, Lamar, whom we'd met in Montreal when he was accompanying the Festival Choruses.
We began work on five pieces: "Fanfare For a Festival" or as I thought of it, "Blow Out Your Voice In One Fell Swoop"; "Will You Harbor Me" by Ysaye Barnwell of Sweet Honey in the Rock; an arrangement of "Over the Rainbow", which had Dennis wanting to yell "Play ball!" at the end; Lambscapes I-V by Eric Lane Barnes ("Mary Had A Little Lamb" in disparate styles beginning with Gregorian chant and ending with Orff); and a piece called "Be The Love" from the Turtle Creek Chorale anniversary songbook. This being a mixed chorus, it was strange that we'd been given the men's chorus arrangement, and after a few minutes of trying to juggle the parts as written, Joe gave up and decided to find a mixed chorus arrangement to pass out on Sunday.
At lunchtime we gathered together a bunch of people including Dennis, Mark, Logan, Chris, Mae (his fellow chorine from Tucson), and myself, and we ate at a little diner off the Plaza.
Rehearsal continued until 5 PM. I decided to take a dip in the pool while Dennis had a chat with his publisher. I might have tagged along but I didn't have any pieces prepared and figured I'd do better to present them all at once, via e-mail, once I get them all cleaned and polished with Finale. While swimming I had a chat with a fellow who was wondering what we all were here for. When I mentioned GALA Choruses and who we were, he pointed out that he and his partner were visiting his partner's family in KC and just happened to be staying in the hotel. I also ran into a few other chorus members -- including Phil, a furry fellow from the South Florida Lambda Chorale -- and a family with two obnoxious little boys who were flicking the bottle caps from their parents' beer bottles all over the pool.
Dinner was a banquet provided as part of the conference fees. We had salmon with green beans as the main course. Unfortunately there was a bit of a row with the hotel because they had to scramble to find alternate meals for those who were either allergic to salmon or strict vegetarians. Logan ended up somehow with two platesful of green beans, once they'd gotten the problem sorted out.
After dinner a duo of a lesbian singer and a gay male accompanist launched into "Old Friend", "Who Will Love Me As I Am?" from Sideshow, and some other old standards. Then the artistic director and another prominent member of the Boston GMC gave a presentation about singing in Poland, and the keynote speaker discussed his organization, Equality Forum, and its parallels with ours.
At the end of the evening Dennis and I sat in the hotel lounge with Logan, Thad (a fellow baritone from Baltimore who was formerly the artistic director of a chorus there which has since disbanded), and a few others. All of a sudden a wedding party descended on the hotel as their reception had broken up. The bride and groom were OK but a few of the party were rather drunk. This girl named Kelly was chatting up Dennis and Logan and the rest of us, six gay men, while her boyfriend (with whom she'd apparently had a fight) looked on and was not amused. They finally had to close the hotel bar and have a manager inform the bride and groom why feeding drinks to the underage members of your wedding party is Not A Good Idea. They ended up calling four cabs to spirit away the rest of the crowd so the bride and groom could go consummate their marriage in peace.
Rehearsal continued, with fresh copies of the mixed chorus edition of "Be The Love" distributed. At some point during the morning, Lamar remarked that we needed to "think about how large you really are" when getting ready to sing, so we would be standing tall and inhaling deeply. This was delivered in a voice that sounded for all the world like Fred Rogers of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.
At lunchtime a group of us -- Dennis, Logan, Thad, Mark, and myself -- headed to Joe Joe's, an Italian eatery known for its panini. I mentioned the remark Lamar had made and Logan responded, "If he tries to tell me how large I am, I'll sit on him" -- to which Mark replied, "Knowing Lamar, he'd like that." I had turkey and pepperoni panini with a Caesar salad.
We did get a couple of breaks during the afternoon, during which I took full advantage of the pool and hot tub. The first break, Dennis and Thad came down with me, while the second break I went by myself and ended up chatting with another chorister from Miami.
Dennis and I had dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House. We considered getting the lamb chops in honor of Lambscapes but went for the petite filet and shrimp instead. As it happened, we needed to put a little rush on the order so we could make it to the concert in time.
The final rehearsal and concert went very well. As we rehearsed "Over the Rainbow", the interim director of GALA Choruses had a similar reaction to Dennis, saluting with a hand over his heart. For only having two days' rehearsal (one in the case of "Be The Love"), everything came off well. The one glitch was that the program appeared to have been typed up by a Canadian, as the Barnwell piece ended up in the program as "Would You Harbour Me?" ;-)
After the concert we joined the closing party at Bistro 303 for a brief while. The place was obviously small for the number of people attending. We did, however, get a chance to chat with Lorne, who lives in Canada but sings with the Buffalo GMC. He's well acquainted withburlybearcan and I mentioned an interesting story from Montreal. After a few minutes of working the crowd, we went back to the hotel and bed.
Not much to report, although we did end up stopping at one of the airport bookstores and picking up T-shirts and a coffee mug that all read:
All in all, a very fun weekend. I'd recommend a GALA Singer's Weekend for any chorus member.
Thursday
On arrival at the departure gate in Rochester we were treated to a bit of drama in which a young woman who had arrived at the gate between the time the jetway had been pulled back from the aircraft and the flight's departure begged, pleaded, threatened, and cajoled the gate agent to let her on the plane, all to no avail. At some point the words "if you continue yelling at me you won't get on a plane today" or similar were used.
We landed at Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport and proceeded to Concourse B where there is a food court. We had Gold Star Chili cheese coneys for lunch and went over to the gate for the KC flight. I was wearing my RGMC polo shirt and eventually a couple of guys came over and asked if we were on our way to GALA. They were representing a chorus in North Carolina. As it happened they were seated across the aisle from us on the next leg of the flight. When we landed and got our bags from baggage claim, the four of us hopped on the shuttle to our hotel.
Once we checked in at the Mariott Country Club Plaza, we registered for the conference and got a chance to chat with a number of artistic directors of choruses. Most importantly for me, I mentioned to the director and assistant director of the Seattle Men's Chorus, Dennis and Eric (both of whom I knew from meeting them at previous GALA Festivals) of my intention to move there in a few months. I expect that barring any issues with arranging for time off in a new job, I'll be singing with them come January -- knowing I'll be auditioning for Eric, I don't anticipate any trouble on that score.
Next we met up with our own board president, J.O., and Rich who is the artistic director of the North Coast Men's Chorus of Cleveland, and the four of us went out for dinner at the Golden Ox, which is just across the street from Kemper Arena -- where I'd performed back in 1989 with the Chorus of the Genesee at the SPEBSQSA National Competiton. Dinner was excellent.
After dinner we returned to the hotel for a welcoming reception, at which we got a chance to chat with Mark, a former RGMC member who now sings with Heartland Men's Chorus, one of the host choruses. It's been a long time since we last saw Mark and even longer since he moved. He's looking well.
Finally, after the reception we got to chatting in the hotel bar with a fellow named Logan from the Tampa Bay area who accompanies the local choral groups and would also be accompanying the Singers' Institute the next day.
Friday
We had breakfast in the hotel dining room, as we would for the remainder of the weekend. They had a breakfast buffet that featured made-to-order omelets, fresh fruit, fried potatoes (sliced or shredded on different days), sausage gravy and biscuits, and bacon and sausage among other things.
The Singers' Institute occupied much of the day on Friday. It was led by Tim Seelig, artistic director of the Turtle Creek Chorale, and dealt with such disparate topics as posture, breathing, tone color, myths about some terminology such as "moving the diaphragm" and "placing vowels in the mask", and a discussion about the three human activities that cause the vocal folds to close off (defecation, childbirth, and heavy lifting, all of which produce the same facial expression as well).
A box lunch was provided by the conference organizers, and as we settled down to eat someone called for a moment of silence for the chorus members still unaccounted for in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. While we ate, they presented a preview of the documentary filmed at GALA Festival VIIe in Montreal as well as a slideshow promoting Festival VIII to be held in Miami in July 2008.
After lunch the Singers' Institute continued for the remainder of the afternoon. After it concluded I went over to the nearby Office Depot to pick up a black folder to hold my music for the closing night performance, and stopped in at the gas station along the way to replace my broken sunglasses. Then we went on to the Plaza for dinner, which we ate at Figlio's. I had the capellini fra diavolo -- angel hair pasta with shrimp in a spicy sauce.
The evening's concert was held at the Unity Temple, a fairly historic old non-denominational church in the middle of the Plaza area. The host choruses as well as the small group, the HeartAches, performed very well. Of course, having had shrimp for dinner, I found the "God Hates Shrimp" sermon that accompanies "The Fundamental" a bit disconcerting but also uproariously funny. One other amusing touch: the decorative plasterwork on the organ case looks very much like male genitalia.
After the concert I decided to go on the pub crawl while Dennis chose to stay back at the hotel. Our first stop was Sidekicks, where a large crowd had gathered due to the gay rodeo also in town that weekend. After spending some time there with Logan and Mark we decided to move on to someplace less crowded. At that point we met up with Chris, the artistic director of Desert Voices in Tucson, who'd apparently just joined the pub crawl.
gmjambear and I had met Chris in Montreal. At 6'8" and in a Utilikilt, he can appear intimidating but has always been very friendly when I've been around him.We went on to the upstairs bar at the Dixie Belle complex, whose name I can't exactly recall but sounds a lot like "Bootlickers" (which name Mark uses anyway, and he was wearing a T-shirt depicting one). This was much less crowded and I got a chance to try a local microbrew called Fat Tire Amber Ale, which was quite nice (even if I was calling it Flat Tire by the end of the evening).
Saturday
The Singer's Weekend Chorus began rehearsing for Sunday night's closing concert. Three rehearsals each day, pretty much from 9 to 5 with some breaks. The director of the Heartland Men's Chorus, Joe Nadeau, also directed our chorus and we were accompanied by their accompanist, Lamar, whom we'd met in Montreal when he was accompanying the Festival Choruses.
We began work on five pieces: "Fanfare For a Festival" or as I thought of it, "Blow Out Your Voice In One Fell Swoop"; "Will You Harbor Me" by Ysaye Barnwell of Sweet Honey in the Rock; an arrangement of "Over the Rainbow", which had Dennis wanting to yell "Play ball!" at the end; Lambscapes I-V by Eric Lane Barnes ("Mary Had A Little Lamb" in disparate styles beginning with Gregorian chant and ending with Orff); and a piece called "Be The Love" from the Turtle Creek Chorale anniversary songbook. This being a mixed chorus, it was strange that we'd been given the men's chorus arrangement, and after a few minutes of trying to juggle the parts as written, Joe gave up and decided to find a mixed chorus arrangement to pass out on Sunday.
At lunchtime we gathered together a bunch of people including Dennis, Mark, Logan, Chris, Mae (his fellow chorine from Tucson), and myself, and we ate at a little diner off the Plaza.
Mae, Chris, Logan, Dennis, Steve. Standing: Mark.
Rehearsal continued until 5 PM. I decided to take a dip in the pool while Dennis had a chat with his publisher. I might have tagged along but I didn't have any pieces prepared and figured I'd do better to present them all at once, via e-mail, once I get them all cleaned and polished with Finale. While swimming I had a chat with a fellow who was wondering what we all were here for. When I mentioned GALA Choruses and who we were, he pointed out that he and his partner were visiting his partner's family in KC and just happened to be staying in the hotel. I also ran into a few other chorus members -- including Phil, a furry fellow from the South Florida Lambda Chorale -- and a family with two obnoxious little boys who were flicking the bottle caps from their parents' beer bottles all over the pool.
Dinner was a banquet provided as part of the conference fees. We had salmon with green beans as the main course. Unfortunately there was a bit of a row with the hotel because they had to scramble to find alternate meals for those who were either allergic to salmon or strict vegetarians. Logan ended up somehow with two platesful of green beans, once they'd gotten the problem sorted out.
After dinner a duo of a lesbian singer and a gay male accompanist launched into "Old Friend", "Who Will Love Me As I Am?" from Sideshow, and some other old standards. Then the artistic director and another prominent member of the Boston GMC gave a presentation about singing in Poland, and the keynote speaker discussed his organization, Equality Forum, and its parallels with ours.
At the end of the evening Dennis and I sat in the hotel lounge with Logan, Thad (a fellow baritone from Baltimore who was formerly the artistic director of a chorus there which has since disbanded), and a few others. All of a sudden a wedding party descended on the hotel as their reception had broken up. The bride and groom were OK but a few of the party were rather drunk. This girl named Kelly was chatting up Dennis and Logan and the rest of us, six gay men, while her boyfriend (with whom she'd apparently had a fight) looked on and was not amused. They finally had to close the hotel bar and have a manager inform the bride and groom why feeding drinks to the underage members of your wedding party is Not A Good Idea. They ended up calling four cabs to spirit away the rest of the crowd so the bride and groom could go consummate their marriage in peace.
Sunday
Rehearsal continued, with fresh copies of the mixed chorus edition of "Be The Love" distributed. At some point during the morning, Lamar remarked that we needed to "think about how large you really are" when getting ready to sing, so we would be standing tall and inhaling deeply. This was delivered in a voice that sounded for all the world like Fred Rogers of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.
At lunchtime a group of us -- Dennis, Logan, Thad, Mark, and myself -- headed to Joe Joe's, an Italian eatery known for its panini. I mentioned the remark Lamar had made and Logan responded, "If he tries to tell me how large I am, I'll sit on him" -- to which Mark replied, "Knowing Lamar, he'd like that." I had turkey and pepperoni panini with a Caesar salad.
We did get a couple of breaks during the afternoon, during which I took full advantage of the pool and hot tub. The first break, Dennis and Thad came down with me, while the second break I went by myself and ended up chatting with another chorister from Miami.
Dennis and I had dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House. We considered getting the lamb chops in honor of Lambscapes but went for the petite filet and shrimp instead. As it happened, we needed to put a little rush on the order so we could make it to the concert in time.
The final rehearsal and concert went very well. As we rehearsed "Over the Rainbow", the interim director of GALA Choruses had a similar reaction to Dennis, saluting with a hand over his heart. For only having two days' rehearsal (one in the case of "Be The Love"), everything came off well. The one glitch was that the program appeared to have been typed up by a Canadian, as the Barnwell piece ended up in the program as "Would You Harbour Me?" ;-)
After the concert we joined the closing party at Bistro 303 for a brief while. The place was obviously small for the number of people attending. We did, however, get a chance to chat with Lorne, who lives in Canada but sings with the Buffalo GMC. He's well acquainted with
burlybearcan and I mentioned an interesting story from Montreal. After a few minutes of working the crowd, we went back to the hotel and bed.Monday
Not much to report, although we did end up stopping at one of the airport bookstores and picking up T-shirts and a coffee mug that all read:
FROM THE DESK OF TOTO
Dear Dorothy,
Hate Oz,
Took the shoes,
Find your own way home!
Toto
All in all, a very fun weekend. I'd recommend a GALA Singer's Weekend for any chorus member.
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