2014, Part 5: My Favorite Sings

Hello faithful readers, First I would like to tell you a little bit more about our Artistic Director William Sauerland. One of the things he told us from the start was that his favorite singer ever is Julie Andrews. That is why this concert was called "My Favorite Sings" and features a photo of Julie as Maria in "The Sound of Music" singing in the Alpine meadow. For this concert he had asked his friend and mentor, soprano Audrey Luna, to join us in this concert. When he told us this we all knew we would have to step our game. But for one reason or another this did not quite happen in our rehearsals as Billy would have liked it to have been. Billy came from a professional singing background and here was directing a community chorus. The low point came in one rehearsal as we were singing "Both Sides Now" and we were not quite getting it done to his satisfaction or ours. He said that if we did not do better he would call Audrey and tell her not to come sing with us. So it was rather an uncomfortable situation for all of us. The good news is that we did pull it together for the concert as we always had done so here is the program.

My Favorite Sings, MCC, 150 Eureka Street, November 14 and 15, 2014.

The concert opened with us singing "Famine Song" which was followed by "How Can I Keep From Singing?" which had been a chorus favorite from past directors and concerts. Next was "I Hear America Singing" and then "Harriet Tubman," another chorus favorite. Then we sang the beautiful Hebrew song "Erev Shel Shoshanim" followed by Eric Whitacre's wonderful "This Marriage" which we dedicated to the Marriage Equality fight. Next we sang Samuel Barber's "Sure on This Shining Night" and this was followed by "Muero Porque No Muero" with Audrey Luna singing her beautiful solo as the end of the first half.

The second half opened with "Ahrirang", a Korean folk song followed by the Irish folk song "Down By the Sally Garden" with Jason LeBrun on flute. Next was "The Blue Bird" again with Audrey soloing on this. Next was "You Are the New Day" followed by Lennon & McCartney's "Can't Buy Me Love" in a Gregorian chant style. Next we sang "Tenderly" oh so tenderly followed by "Both Sides Now" - yes we sang this to Billy's satisfaction. Next was "Seize the Day" from "Newsies" and our finale was selections from "The Sound of Music." Through all the drama of rehearsals for this concert we came through with flying colors for an inspiring night of music.

I will be taking a week off next week from the Corner as I will be in Tucson at the GALA Leadership Symposium with Michael and Robert and Dale and I will be attending a workshop about GALA liaisons and learning more about GALA Festival coming up next year in Minneapolis so I will have news for all of you when we are back in rehearsals.

Cheers, Michael Lucero