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More notes listened to....
(with words, this time, even)
Sunday I went off to Hill Auditorium to usher the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra/Exigence Chorus concert. Both ensembles are Black/Latinx professional ensembles, building their repertoires out of pieces by Black/Latinx composers or arrangers. I liked the orchestra half of the concert better, although I think that some of the difficulties I had with Exigence is the arrangements they chose -- it's an adult chorus with grown-up men, so where were the strong/deep actual BASS voices in the spiritual? I may be biased by childhood exposure to William Dawson spirituals (and operatic choruses and Renaissance church music and English composers writing for University choruses -- the WSU Glee Club/Chamber Singers sang all kinds of music), but (IMO) a "proper" spiritual takes advantage of the basses. There was some (not much, though) in the Joel Thompson "Seven Last Words of the Unarmed", but otherwise I didn't hear any.
But it was a good concert, overall, although the timing of it was such that it ate my entire Sunday afternoon (usher call was 12:30, I didn't get out of the hall until after 4, and it's 40 minutes from home).
Sunday I went off to Hill Auditorium to usher the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra/Exigence Chorus concert. Both ensembles are Black/Latinx professional ensembles, building their repertoires out of pieces by Black/Latinx composers or arrangers. I liked the orchestra half of the concert better, although I think that some of the difficulties I had with Exigence is the arrangements they chose -- it's an adult chorus with grown-up men, so where were the strong/deep actual BASS voices in the spiritual? I may be biased by childhood exposure to William Dawson spirituals (and operatic choruses and Renaissance church music and English composers writing for University choruses -- the WSU Glee Club/Chamber Singers sang all kinds of music), but (IMO) a "proper" spiritual takes advantage of the basses. There was some (not much, though) in the Joel Thompson "Seven Last Words of the Unarmed", but otherwise I didn't hear any.
But it was a good concert, overall, although the timing of it was such that it ate my entire Sunday afternoon (usher call was 12:30, I didn't get out of the hall until after 4, and it's 40 minutes from home).