Seattle Men’s Chorus
Holiday 2020(through December 31)
https://www.seattlechoruses.org/attend/concerts-events/holidayspecial/
Also! A second little treat to watch to celebrate the advent
of vaccinations:
A terrific song by the Seattle Women’s Chorus starring
Andi
Alhadeff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q85-e-dM9A0
We know you can’t go without every Holiday Comfort just
because you can’t go out. And what about that annual treck to Benaroya to
attend a Seattle Men’s Chorus Holiday Extravaganza? I’ll bet you think that’s
just an impossible dream for 2020.
Hold On! You absolutely can still get almost all the grins
and feels of an in-person event, because Seattle Men’s Chorus managed to
somehow rehearse ! and perform !! their Holiday Concert this year and even
found the perfect guest star to host!
With the help of
Nina West, and an inventive new
Muppet-like little guy called Holiday Harold (think Herald, too, from the mind
of
Chip Sherman), the whole family can gather around a streaming screen
and enjoy an hour of all the “normal” entertainment you’re used to. They’ve
even included a dance number -
Festival Gloria (graced with
Nahshon
Omari’s original dance accompaniment).
They’ve put together an hour’s worth of wonderful
productions and patter, and this year, you don’t have to cover the kids’ eyes
for even a second. The whole thing was undertaken way, way back in the late
spring as they contemplated what would surely be a dark winter.
Paul Caldwell, artistic director of the Men’s and
Women’s Choruses, and dozens of people, worked for many months to learn new
technologies, apply new techniques for rehearsing and suddenly become able to
create a professional-looking holiday concert to stream. Caldwell talked to SGN
about how that worked.
“We realized we weren’t going to be able to do an in-person
holiday show,” he said, “But we wanted to do
something. We started with
the instrumentalists recording their part alone and then it was sent around to
the other musicians and they sent their parts to an audio engineer who took
them all and stacked them together so they sounded like a band.”
In fact, because this is zoom-like, you get to see the
musicians up-close and personal, too, which is a special treat.
Caldwell continued, “Then I sent the instrumental to select
section singers and they recorded their section part - alone - and sent that
back and at the end of the day, I had the instrumental and a quartet.
“Once we had the quartet, it went to the whole chorus and
each person put the track on their headphones and each singer would put their
phone in front of them and video themselves singing just their part. We were
able to get individual recordings from 140 of our members! Of Each Song!
“Then the video guy accessed the individual videos of
singers and he was sort like making a quilt out of all the swatches of singers.
They’re like music videos of each song with visual wizardry!”
Along with standard choral sounds of
Here We Come
A-Caroling, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, Deck the Hall and
Auld Lang
Syne, they’ve sprinkled in some original music, too.
Largely written and production-managed and directed by the
amazingly versatile
Kathryn van Meter, our local songmeister
Rich
Gray was enlisted to create an original song,
Your Recipe is Perfect to
Me, for Nina to sing that goes along with the funny framework of Fruitcake.
van Meter recruited a slew of adorable children who are
quizzed about their fruitcake knowledge by Harold and give some hilarious
answers.
The
Supertonics, their “pocket choir,” brings in the
macabre with an original
Eric Knechtges composition called
12 Days of
Quarantine.
On the first day of Quarantine
My true love gave to me
A roll of the fancy T-P!
On the second day of quarantine
My true love gave to me
Two facial masks….
Three French wines
Four frozen pizzas
Five hours on HOLD!
On the sixth day of Quarantine
My friends all said to me
Six feet of distance!
On the seventh day of Quarantine
Netflix gave to me
Seven episodes of Tiger King
On the eighth day of Quarantine
Thanks to Uber-Eats
Ate some Chinese food…
On the ninth day of Quarantine
I managed to stress eat
Nine pints of ice cream
On the tenth day of Quarantine
Insta-Cart was free…
Ten bowls of cereal
On the eleventh day of Quarantine
My eyes began to bleed
Eleven hours on Facebook
On the twelfth day of Quarantine
The Feds gave to me
Twelve hundred dollars…
(oh, but it doesn’t end there…….)
There’s more to see and enjoy, so get comfy and get ready to
be fulfilled and grateful that your holiday traditions are not entirely
missing!
https://www.seattlechoruses.org/attend/concerts-events/holidayspecial/