Barnyard HalleMOOya

My choir performs our spring concert this weekend. Gosh, I'd hate for you to miss it, and I have a solo in it, too! So I thought I'd post a virtual concert. (I'll let you know where my solo is so you don't miss it, which would be easy to do.)

We have entitled our concert Barnyard HalleMOOya for reasons that will soon become clear.

Our first piece is a repeat from previous concerts (you can only buy so much new music with your Parks and Recreation grant, after all).

Let Me Fly, arranged by Robert DeCormier



Our director loves spirituals, so here's another one:

Ride the Chariot, arranged by William Henry Smith. Our director, Denise, would be very pleased with this group's fine diction during the quiet bits. "Make sure you don't lose energy here! Keep your diction precise and intense!"



In keeping with our worshipful theme, we'll continue with All Creatures of Our God and King, arranged by Mark Hayes. Just for fun, listen for the altos.We altos sing our hearts out but you can never hear us, so this song gives us a chance to shine just a little bit.



Just when you were wondering if we are actually a denominational choir, we'll keep you guessing by pulling out Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, by John Greenleaf Whittier, but not the version that is most commonly known. In fact, I can't find a recording of it anywhere, so you'll just have to imagine our resplendent voices raised in this simple Quaker hymn.

And now for something completely different! Let's get secular with Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da, a Beatles tune arranged for choir by the King's Singers. Unlike the Salt Lake Choral Artists, however, we actually stick our fingers in our mouths to make the marimba sound (none of this namby-pamby finger wiggling thing they're doing here), and since our alto section has been whittled down to three over the season, we make a trumpet of our hands during the brass bits to project our voices better.



We'll travel to Scotland now and hear I'll Aye Call in By Yon Town, by Robert Burns, arranged by Mack Wilberg. This piece has one of the craziest piano accompaniments I've ever heard. And you have to use your diaphragm so much to get those pesky quick eighth note runs that you're belly is sore by the time you're done.



Thought we were done with spiritual music? Ha! Prepare yourself for Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal, arranged by Alice Parker.



Now it's the men's turn. They'll be singing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. There a million different versions of this, none of them quite the version our guys sing, but this one is the closest. I must confess that I have no idea what this song is about, really. I've listened to the words over and over, but my conclusion is that it was such a personal thing that no one can ever really figure it out completely. Anyway, our guys do a beautiful job.



And now we get to the cow bit in our HalleMOOya. Eric Whitacre made it a goal to put all of Ogden Nash's silly little animal poems to music, and we will be singing Volume 1: i. The Panther ii. The Cow iii. The Firefly. Just for fun, here are the words.

The Panther
The panther is like a leopard
except it hasn't been peppered.
If you behold a panther crouch
prepare to say "ouch."
Better yet if called by a panther
don't anther.

The Cow
[the basses have to perform some vocal feats of mooing]
The cow is of the Bovine ilk.
One end is moo
the other milk.

The Firefly
The firefly's flame is something for which science has no name.
I can think of nothing eerier
than flying around with an unidentified glow on a person's posterior!



Can you ever get enough of Eric Whitacre? No. The women will now perform She Weeps Over Rahoon, text by James Joyce, music by Eric Whitacre. But instead of an English horn playing the instrumental part, we have a talented clarinetist.

Again, just for fun, here are the words, since the three parts are not always singing the same thing at the same time.

She Weeps Over Rahoon

Rain on Rahoon falls softly, softly falling,
Where my dark lover lies.
Sad is his voice that calls me, sadly calling,
At grey moonrise.
Love, hear thou
How soft, how sad his voice is ever calling,
Ever unanswered, and the dark rain falling,
Then as now.
Dark too our hearts, O love, shall lie and cold
As his sad heart has lain
Under the moongrey nettles, the black mould,
And muttering rain.



MORE Eric Whitacre, but this time the whole choir gets to sing and we're not singing about animals. We present Five Hebrew Love Songs, with text by Hila Plitmann (fun fact: she's married to Eric Whitacre), music by Eric Whitacre. We also have a lovely young violinist (one of my neighbors, in fact) accompanying us. I love this performance by The Salt Lake Choral Artists. I won't include the words because they are in Hebrew, and unless you speak Hebrew, they won't matter to you. Also, this is where I have my solo. I do the whispered part in Eyze Sheleg, the second to last of the five songs.



Don't quit yet! Only two more pieces, and both of them exciting! Our second to last song of the evening is Naiman Sharag, by Se Enkhbayar. I'm proud to say I brought this piece to Denise's attention and she included it in the program. It's in Mongolian, of course, because if it were in English that would be too easy. Just imagine the eight chestnut horses racing around on the plains of Mongolia. This performance by the Inner Mongolian Youth Chorus is lovely, although it makes me realize our accents are simply atrocious. We're counting on not having any native Mongolian speakers in our audience. (Watch the video up to 4:05, because after that there's some sort of game show (?) thing going on).



Our last performance for the evening is a particularly rousing one, and one that must be saved for last because we're all completely hoarse after singing it. For your pleasure, Ah, el novio no quere dinero!, by Mack Wilberg.

I'm embedding this performance by the Delta Concert Choir because the Mormon Tabernacle performance includes an orchestra, which we not only don't have but isn't called for in our music (fun fact: Mack Wilberg leads the Mormon Tabernacle Choir). The Delta Concert Choir does a very anemic job with the clapping -- they look downright confused in some parts -- but because this version is like ours, with the drums, I'll grit my teeth and embed it.



Thank you for your kind applause. This concludes this evening's performance, and we invite everyone to enjoy some refreshments in the next room.