I sang with Chanticleer . . .

. . . as part of 100+ singers doing a workshop-type event on November 8. Who would ever have thought I would have this opportunity?

It was a unique and memorable event. PJ and MB showed up for the Chanticleer workshop portion (including the performance), which was much appreciated.



I'm posting the video off PJ's phone for the Ave Maria, even though the audio portion is just awful (though how amazing is it that we can capture any video at all off a mobile phone?) It does trigger memories for me, which is what this is all about anyway. I'm grateful she captured it.

This was a pretty unique event. We began with sessions with Charles Bruffy and Brook Larson, all of which was quite fine.

Chanticleer then showed up (they were performing in Wickenburg in a couple days). These guys can just sing. A few elements of interest (at least to me):

1. They talked about how the Ave Maria became one of their signature numbers - became known in the US in the late 70s.

2. They talked about meeting the composer (Franz Biebl, who wrote the piece in 1964) in Berlin - this was recounted by the choir member with by the far most experience, a bass who had been with the group 20+ years. (We had seen him at NAU with the Chaparral folks in ~2000.) A nice story.

3. The musical director was a pretty talented guy; he talked about how the 20th century seemed to need its own Ave Maria, and that the composer was perhaps a transcriber for something coming from outside himself. Nothing hip about those comments, which perhaps is why they struck home.

4. When we got around to singing the Biebl I had to pause during the first run-through. Evocative, to say the least. I first ran into the song at the ND Glee Club reunion in 2000; they had adopted the song sometime after my graduation. (By coincidence, the NDGC reunion was this same weekend and those guys no doubt were singing this same song.)

The WSJ had another article in the past week or so where the author discussed how various folks try to describe in words how/why music works. It was somehow reassuring to see how these attempts don't (and can't, I would say) succeed.