commas and ampersands

Goodness. I haven't posted a real summary of the weekend yet. I was too busy getting over the cold that I caught from Colin that he caught from Jakob.

It was a busy weekend (surprise, surprise), but a really good way to officially kick off the Christmas season. Thursday night, we went to Rocky Mountain College's Christmas concert (you know, with the whole "small world" thing with the director, who was the director at my church in California last year), and Friday and Saturday, Colin, Mom, and Dad sang in Ambrose's production of Messiah. Saturday afternoon, we went to a baby shower for Scott, Heather, and Martin; Sunday, we went to church in the morning, and then had two rehearsals in the afternoon before heading off to the airport. And somewhere in there (mostly after midnight), we still managed to find time to finish watching the first season of Arrested Development, which we'd started at Canadian Thanksgiving but not finished.

And, of course, there was the time with Kat, Aaron, and the kids, but that's already been well-photographed and posted about. :)

Messiah was good, overall, but disappointing in places. The first, biggest, thing was that it was held in the gym of the college that was hosting it. That wasn't the director's choice, but the school just built a brand-new campus, so of course the administration wanted the Christmas concert to show it off. Unfortunately, there's not a large enough concert hall for the event, so they set up the gym.

The sound was quite good, and it didn't have the terrible acoustics that most gyms have, but the aesthetic was terrible. The mood and formality of the event was really compromised by having it in the venue that they did. I get why the administration wanted it there; I'm also completely on the director's side, who has said that he's going to fight to make sure it never happens in that location again. It's why I will not have my wedding reception in a community hall or something similar. No matter how much you try to dress it up, it still looks like a high-school dance, and that's an aesthetic that isn't appropriate for a concert like that.

The Saturday night concert was a sing-along, which I was really excited about, but it was far from meeting my expectations.

Last year, Jenny and I went to a sing-along Messiah with the L.A. Master Chorale at the Walt Disney Concert Hall (which is one of the world's best concert venues). Of course, right there, if I'm comparing the two, there's a problem. Heh. However, the issue went far beyond the size and stature of the event. At the one we were at last year, there was no choir. There was the orchestra, four soloists, and the conductor, and the audience, most of whom had come prepared to sing, were the choir. It was fantastic, great fun, and really, really interactive.

The way that Ambrose did it, the concert went on as usual, the exception being the fact that the audience was invited to bring (or borrow) a score and sing along. However, there wasn't much interaction with it, and people didn't really come expecting to sing. Because the concert was with two college choirs (and a community choir), there were too many parents and family members who were just there to see their kids. Not enough people wanted to sing.

I think it would have been significantly better if the choir had been planted in the audience for the sing-along. 80 choir members in an audience of 400 would go a long way to build enthusiasm for the sing-along part, and then the conductor wouldn't be focused towards the choir, but could be toward the audience. Also, Colin made the point that, as a choir member, he felt like the audience's attention was divided on the Saturday night, since we (at least those of us who were singing) weren't fully there to see/hear the choir, but to participate in it ourselves.

But, as I said, the music was very good. It was very accessible for a classical concert; the soloists were obviously trained, but not too operatic for the average audience member to enjoy. There was the unfortunate incident of a few college freshmen in the back row who haven't quite figured out "concert behavior" and just about made me keel over from laughing so hard during the Saturday night show. One of the guys in the back row yawned--huge--and stretched just as the bass soloist started singing. Exactly the same moment. It was like the moment in Lion King where Simba roars, but it's really Mufasa behind him making the noise. The kid didn't bother to cover his mouth, keep from stretching, stay fully seated (he kind of rose halfway out of his seat)... it was hilarious, in a "how can you possibly think this is appropriate onstage behavior?" kind of way. It's like they forgot that people could see them when they weren't actually singing. Seriously, I think Colin was just about ready to come down from the choir to see if I was going to die on him. My face was turning purple, I was laughing so hard, and I think that Esther was kind of ashamed to be seen sitting next to me.

It's just unfortunate that they were forced to perform in a gym and that the sing-along wasn't better thought-out. Maybe next year!

And that's my two cents' worth on that. Esther commented that I carry around a pocketful of pennies, ready to insert my two (or ten) cents when it comes to the arts. Fortunately, Colin does the same thing, so we're obviously a perfect match.



Sunday, there was a rehearsal after church for Colin's cantata, which I'm going to sing in, despite only having one rehearsal with them. I've had the music longer than anyone else in the choir (I helped pick it), and I've been working on it on my own, so it'll be fine. After that, there was another rehearsal for the Christmas show at Foothills Alliance, which was my only chance to hear any of that show, since it'll close a few days before I get into town.


By Sunday afternoon, we were both well on our way to catching colds. Jakob, who was coming down with something, was all over Colin on Thursday, and then I think I got it from Colin by about Saturday. I stayed home Monday and slept, and that was helpful--it seems to be running its course really quickly.

And now, we're well into the home stretch of the pre-Christmas rush. I have five written assignments and two presentations to do in the next week, but fortunately, the presentations each correspond with a written assignment, so really, it's only five assignments. Also, a) some of them are already partially done and I just need to finish them up, and b) they're not all full-length papers. I don't think I have anything that will end up being longer than about 8 pages, which isn't bad at all.

Emmanuel Church's Christmas concerts are on the 13th and 14th, so we have our dress rehearsal next Wednesday. Colin has more in the way of rehearsals than I do (although I need to be in on some Borkman rehearsals in the next week, as well). He's finished with Messiah, obviously, but Foothills Lutheran's cantata only has a few rehearsals left, he's heading into tech for Foothills Alliance's show, and he has to finish the design for Steel Mags, which apparently is kind of a train-wreck of a show, in some ways.

I was going to try and keep this entry from being too epic, so I'll post pictures later, as well as a story about Amazon.com. In the meantime, my homework and my pillow are both calling me. The sooner I get to one, the sooner I can get to the other.