TOSVA

I told you all about joining The Oratorio Society of Virginia (hereafter to be referred to as TOSVA)-- but I never got around to posting about our concerts or anything!

So, yes, we had two concerts last spring.  One was in a local church where we sang Lux Aeterna by Morten Lauridsen (who has his summer home in the San Juan Islands! and who also sent us a very nice email wishing us well with the performance!)-- I had never heard this music before, but I quickly grew to love it.  It's kind of like Gregorian Chant, except it actually gets somewhere by the end, if that makes any sense.  My favorite recording is probably this one on YouTube, or you can find it on Amazon Music, if you want to listen to it.  I play it on Sunday mornings as I get ready for church, and it puts me in a wonderful mood.  Or if the kids are stressing me out and I need to calm down, this is a go to for me...  The concert was awesome, except I was wearing shoes that weren't comfortable-- that was a mistake that I won't repeat!  And, I was standing on the edge of the stand right over a drum set and was terrified that I would accidentally fall off.  That would have been so beyond embarrassing!  Fortunately I managed to stay firm-footed the entire time, painful shoes and all.

Our second concert was on Mother's Day, and for that one we sang at UVA's concert hall!  The theme for this concert was A Celebration of Great Choruses, and some of what we sang included the opening song from Carmina Burana, the drinking song from La traviata, "Dona nobis pacem" from Bach's B minor Mass and we ended with the Hallelujah Chorus.  It was fabulous.  And I wore shoes that didn't kill me.

Rehearsal at the concert hall.  You can barely see me in a yellow shirt way off on the left, second row up.

There you can actually see me as we're getting on stage.  Craig informed me that my dress made me look like the Angel of Death...

All ready to start singing

Anyway, I was so glad I had the opportunity to sing again and learn new beautiful music.  TOSVA breaks for the summer, which was nice, and then our first rehearsal back was on Monday.  As I drove myself there, I found that I couldn't stop grinning-- I was just so excited to get singing again!

There were several new people at our first rehearsal and they all had the chance to introduce themselves.  One had majored in music in college, and pretty much all of them had sung in their college choirs (and most of them were all UVA students, so they'd sung for our choir director, since he also conducts the UVA Singers).  I felt like a bit of an imposter, especially when it was pointed out that 27 people had auditioned and only a handful had gotten in.  I never sang with any of the BYU choirs!  I guess I'll be working extra hard to earn my keep-- but lucky for me, that will be a lot of fun!