rehearsals

It is better to be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than to dwell in the tents of the ungodly, or something...so we are told, at least, not so?

And so this evening (I didn't manage to make good my escape from the office in time) I AM the doorkeeper, in charge of jumping up when the buzzer sounds, to admit a whole retinue of young singers -- well, young = twenty-somethings mostly. They are here to rehearse.

Every year on New Year's Eve, Most Holy and Undivided hosts a very special concert...the group assembled first ten years ago in support of a doctoral candidate in choral music who was specializing in the music of Pierre de la Rue. (The fun part of advanced work in choral music, as I've come to see, is that one needs collaborators!!!)

In the succeeding years although the members of the group have scattered hither and yon around the planet in the manner of their generation, they somehow manage to reassemble in Prairie Metropolis around about Christmas...and as they're all here anyway...why not have another concert?

The music is generally speaking either "early" or "contemporary" -- a cappella -- there is champagne and Ghirardelli chocolate in the intermission... and over the last six or seven years this has become a very hot New Year's Eve ticket indeed, in these parts.

They're all in the nave, not far from where I sit, getting properly "tore in" on a Kyrie. And they will rehearse intensively from now until Monday evening, when the place will be packed to the doors. Their concert always ends with an audience-participation version of "Auld Lang Syne."
I can hardly wait.