I get to be in Beethoven's 9th

I'm trying something new this year - in addition to continuing year six of participation in Choral Union at ASU (with CPG), I auditioned for the chorus in something known as Arizona Musicfest (promoted as ''Arizona's Premier Winter Music Festival" - which may be true, as far as I know). I understand that they bring in orchestra folks from major symphonies around the U.S.

The performance has been sold out for some time, which is kind of neat.

I was interested for a few reasons - an opportunity to work with a different chorus; the conductor (Robert Moody) was enjoyable to work with at our holiday concert with the Phoenix Symphony; and it was practical, a reasonable practice schedule. But most of all: the work that the chorus is performing is Beethoven's famous 9th Symphony (4th movement, Schiller's "Ode to Joy"). I needed to be in this and see what it's like. Even if I was nervous about auditioning.

Some background on this work - most interesting - is in this book.

The chorus listing is at this link.

And Moody does a pretty interesting promotional video on the Musicfest website giving some information on the work . . . I especially like the description of the performance (led by Leonard Bernstein) shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall . . . with the combined orchestras from East and West Germany. Here it is:



Performance is Feb. 27, I'm very much looking forward to it.