choir experiment

A break from relentless Norway blogging: remember my grand choir experiment, where I was going to be in five, no make that six, singing groups this spring? The experiment has yielded results: Six choirs is too many. Actually, six choirs may not be too many in a perfect world, but I've dropped two of them for being dissatisfactory. First I decided I really did not need to be spending time and mental energy on the little start-up choir, which doesn't seem likely to get off the ground.

But the one I quit last night has been going strong for, I don't know, a decade or so. I sang with it for about a year when I first came to town, and I thought I'd pop in for the winter season, partly because Tall L and Basso are in it, partly because they're doing the Faure Requiem and I love that. But every rehearsal has reminded me again why I quit that choir in the first place. The director has a certain lack of...artistic vision? vocal technique? leadership skills? All these things. And when she's stressed, she gets mean. So after she attacked a sick person and an old person for not standing up to sing through the last piece at the end of rehearsal last night, I decided, you know what? I'm not going to give my Friday night and Saturday afternoon/evening to this person. (Right, I dropped out three days before the concert.) If it was in the pursuit of musical excellence, that would be one thing, but it's in the pursuit of musical ok-ness. And I'd much rather be at home helping out my mom (who's doing really well, by the way).

So, down to four singing groups now. Actually only two right now - the big super-good choir and my church choir, and I think I'm taking a short church choir hiatus to hang out with my mom. Soon things will pick up with the May version of the Christmas Show and the associated madrigal-singing group.