That's Rrekviem. At least in the Germanic Latin version. So I joined this choir last semester. It's known as the Wasatch Chorale. While I have sung in a few choirs in my life (mostly church and institute) and I even took a year of voice lessons, I am not the best singer. My skills lie mostly with matching and, to some degree, blending, which is usually enough for the simpler of choirs. A friend of mine is actually the assistant conductor of the choir and when I moved down here he began to convince me to join. I went to their firs performance last October and then my buddy arranged an audition for me. Wait, Audition! Yeah, he never mentioned that in his months of convincing me to join. One week before what would be my first practice, he decide to spring this on me. And it's an audition that requires singing My Country, 'Tis of Thee and some sight reading. Did I mention that I match? Yeah, that doesn't work so well for sight reading.
For a side note on My Country, 'Tis of Thee. That was the song I had to sing on the first day of my voice lessons. Bless her heart, my voice instructor did her best pounding out that melody in hopes that I would actually get on the right note at some point during the song. Later I would found out that she had never had someone who struggled so much with that song and who was as tone deaf as I was, especially considering I had eight years of playing the clarinet under my belt. Of course, I didn't end the year in that some condition and my instructor was full of praise of my improvements over the year, and thankfully I wasn't as toned deaf. I could now match with the [decent] of them. Still, the thought of singing that song for my tryout brought back those old apprehensions.
What I loved was that the audition wasn't the only surprise. On the day of the tryout my buddy informed me that there were dues in the amount of $100 and that I would have to purchase a tux, of over $100. I know why he held off on these details, there would have been no convincing of me had I known all this. It would have been easy to say no, but he let ,e get far enough down this road so that it was more difficult to turn back. So, I went through with it and for some reason, they let me in. Is there such thing as nepotism, only with friends instead of family?
The first couple of concerts were good, but not unlike the institute choirs I had sung in. However, in February we sang Mozart's Requiem and that was an amazing experience. I didn't realize before hand that it should have been on my bucket list, but it should have been and I can now check it off. Singing the Requiem you feel like you are part of a masterpiece that is much bigger than your small part and the feeling, emotion, spirit and energy in that music is phenomenal. Of course I must say, "Hat's off" to the conductor, Dr. Reed Criddle of UVU, who did a fantastic job. The soloists as well were amazing. It was a transcendental experience. My parents, sister, grandmother, cousins and friends all came. My parents who usually do not care for the style of music actually loved it.
So in the end, while it was a twisting-of-the-arm path getting into the choir, the opportunity to sing Mozart's Requiem really was a monumental life experience. Here is a little clip from the performance.
