The Professional Choral Institute: Day 12

Thursday, June 2

The day of the second recording session! Yippee, right?
I think we lost some our adrenaline, so it went okay, but it wasn't as high energy as the day before.
We were going to be recording movements 1, 3, and 7. Patrick also wanted another shot at movement 4 if we were going to have time.
This recording was definitely different. There were so many parts that we just couldn’t get right! It started to get a little more intense towards the end of the first session. Like, in movement three, for example--there is one part where we sing, “wie nichts.” Yeah, okay, try saying “wie nichts” and getting that all together. It was ridiculous. We sang it dozens of times. Over and over. And people were starting to get a liiiiittle frustrated.
BUT IT’S OKAY! WE GOT IT!
We had dinner at Panera again with Lanette and Ruthie. That was quite fun. Since it was just the four of us, we could have more of a real conversation. We got to know Lanette and Ruthie a little better. Lanette isn’t even majoring in or studying music. She just thought this sounded fun and auditioned. Isn't that just awesome? And Ruthie is an incredible singer--she is a teacher and she is getting ready to do her Master's at USF.
When we had to go back to the recording session, everyone was kind of having a hard time. Everyone was pretty low on energy, tired, getting frustrated. Peter and Patrick kept telling us to say "I'm so happy to be here", "I love singing" , “Now hug the person next to you.” Ha ha. Believe it or not…it totally helped. :] I think we should have to do that more often than we ever do.
So we finally finished those three movements and then we starting recording movement four again. It was going pretty well. We started really making music with it and getting our energy back up. I think the fourth movement is just kind of our piece that we can all just make music and not worry so much. It is the grounding place for all of us, we all feel comfortable and happy in movement four.
After the fourth movement, we started recording the beginning of movement 1 again. The opening is so important and you have to have it just right! Patrick finally just said, "You guys, just sing. Don't worry about it. Just sing." And Seraphic Fire started singing and we all just tried to feel the music when we came in. No worries. Just singing.
Patrick started to tear up while he was up there conducting. Then I started getting all teary! I realized that this was it. It was happening. Here I was. With these people. We were making real music. I thought it was the most beautiful piece of music ever written. There we were, singing the best we know how. And it was beautiful. Patrick thought it was beautiful. When we were all done we were so happy that we just applauded like mad! Then Peter came out and talked to us. He was in tears saying that he has loved the Requiem since he was fourteen and he never heard it sound as beautiful as we had just performed it.
It was so exciting, I can't even tell you. I just wanted to cry. It was one of the happiest moments of my life. My feet could have lifted off the ground. My heart was so happy that I thought it was going to burst.

In celebration, we went and got ice cream with Kristen, Zaray, Brett, David, and Sarah. Taliah and I were on a HIGH. We were SO happy and excited! The rest of the people we were with didn't seem nearly as excited as we were, but that's a-okay.
Taliah and I got home and talked for a long time. About the music, about the people we were with, about how wonderful it all is. Because it is. This music is glorious. Singing it is glorious.
::operatic voice:: GLOOOOORIOUS!