There Is Faint Music in the Night

My choir performed on Temple Square last Tuesday. Here is a picture of us after our performance in the Assembly Hall.

You'll notice that everyone except me is looking at the camera. This should not surprise you. Somehow, everyone else gets the signal to look to their left, and there I am grinning like an idiot at some camera to my right.

But we had a good time. Well, as good a time as one can have when one is dripping with sweat from the heat of the lights, one's feet have gone numb, and one keeps forgetting to breathe from the diaphragm because one is a little nervous and one ends up a little light-headed and keeps realizing one is locking one's knees. But people told us we sounded great, so it was a good time.

It honestly isn't for the public that we perform on Temple Square. Frankly, no one can hear us when we sing in the North Visitors' Center (visit there sometime and test the acoustics by yelling a bit. No one will care because no one can hear you), and we're usually last on the day's docket for the Assembly Hall, which means everyone except die-hard family and friends have gone home because it's cold and dark by 8:30 in the evening, so there are maybe 30 people in the audience.

No, we perform on Temple Square purely in order to enjoy the excellent acoustics of the Assembly Hall. There's nothing like the thrill of everyone (even the basses!) singing the right notes whilst following our conductor (who is the woman at the far left on the top row, by the way) closely, and in a moment of pure and utter triumph, a delicious chord rings back at us from the back of the hall.

It's heady stuff.

Plus, in order to justify having weekly rehearsals, I guess we should perform, too. Honestly, even if we never performed, I'd go just for the rehearsals because we have so much fun and I learn so much from our amazing and talented conductor, who selects enjoyably challenging music. I'm so comfortable with these people that my mostly dormant clownish side shows up every Saturday evening between seven and nine pm; and, very surprisingly, these people find me funny. I repay their kindness by never trying out for solos.

Our Christmas performances are next weekend: Friday and Saturday evenings. We perform in a very modern Episcopalian church/community center made almost entirely of concrete, which, as you might imagine, is great for acoustics. No one will record us, but it'll be a load of fun. I promise.