Hungarian

A BIG thank you to Klára Morvai for spending so much of her precious time with us at our rehearsal last night.  It was fascinating (and moving) to hear about the importance of Kodaly's pieces and the Hungarian musical traditions.   Whilst we could not pretend to be anyway fluent yet, Klára has however given us an excellent start for Esti Dal and Turot Eszik.  We hope to do her proud.

Here is the photo of the white board from last night and we will send the recording of Klára reading the text  to the choir by email .

Purcell - Sopranos and Altos

We are doing really well with our Purcell rehearsals before Chamber Choir on Mondays however we thought it might be a good idea to propose that we split the half hour session in two - focusing on Evening Hymn first and then Sound the Trumpet.  This way any alto's who feel that the former is just too high for them can opt out of the first half of the session (no shame in that - Evening Hymn is set for a very high voice and it is not a surprise that it is challenging some alto's!).

Hungarian Lesson

Dear All,

A Hungarian colleague of Douglas', Klára Morvai, will be joining us on Monday to fine-tune our pronounciations of the Kodaly numbers........................................

Klara, like all Hungarians, is an avid and confident choral singer and is well aware of the pieces, so it should be fun. If you interested in the Kodaly singing Method as used across Hungary and in various centres across the world, please click here.

Let's please have a great attendance so that we don't have to try and relearn anything later!

Thanks,

Ed

July 2011 - The Sage Gateshead Chamber Choir concerts....

July 3rd:
We are performing in Hall 2 at The Sage as part of the Adult Programme Celebration

The concert begins at 5.00pm.(Singers, please assume you will be needed a couple of hours before that for rehearsals - exact times to be confirmed)

July 17th:

We are performing in the beautiful chapel at the National Trust's Gibside, Rowlands Gill.

The concert is from 2.00 -3.00pm (Singers, please arrive in time for a rehearsal at 1.30pm)

July 23rd:
We are performing our summer concert at Trinity Church, Gosforth
The concert is 7.00-8.30pm (approx) (singers, please assume you will need to be there from 4.00pm for rehearsals - exact time to be confirmed)

June 2011 Directing Course

For all you budding conductors. Great leaders (Ed has worked with Patrick before) - do let everyone know.

More information here: www.abcd.org.uk/events/84/Dynamic+Directing

Sheet Music

We regularly buy and borrow sheet music for the choir at a great cost, and sadly a lot of it goes missing. That means we have to buy more or pay the organisation whose music we have lost!

Now we have the wonderful Beth on the library it means that we can check who has each piece, but even then (and I know this is difficult to believe) sometimes people leave the choir and don’t give their music back! So we need a simple easy way to make sure that we don’t lose music/money.

There are two things we can do – ask everyone to sign for each piece of music, knowing that you would have to pay for replacements, or charge everyone a deposit for each piece we have (say £2 per piece), knowing that it will be safe and returned on the return of the music. We want to know which works best for you so we will vote as a choir on Monday.

Ta!

Hungarian Translations

I thought you might enjoy these translations of the Kodaly numbers.

Esti Dal (Kodály)

Evening darkness overtook me near the woods;
I have put my coat under my head (i.e. as a pillow),
I have put my hands together
To pray to the Lord, like this:

Oh, my Lord, give me a place to sleep,
I am weary with wandering,
With walking around and hiding,
With living on foreign land.

May Lord give me a good night,
May he send me a holy angel,
May he encourage our hearts' dreams,
May he give us a good night.

Turot Eszik (Kodaly)

The gypsy eats curded cheese, "duba",
After that he quarrels, "leba",
He says he will slap my face, "duba",
Next he will hit his grandfather, "leba".

Past the budding fig tree he drives his caravan.
"Rida, rida, bom. bom, bom".
He has a life that is free.