Last Tuesday, one of our long-time members talked about her recent experiences on a trip to New York. She said that she had never dreamed that she would get a chance to sing in Carnegie Hall in New York city. When a local choir that she sings with, the Cosmopolitan Chorus, was invited to perform as part of a concert in Carnegie Hall, she eagerly accepted.
An American production company routinely invites choirs from across North America to perform in Carnegie Hall. Her choir, along with two other western Canadian choirs, Chorale Saint-Jean from Edmonton and Nova Borealis from Smithers, BC were also invited, and members from all three choirs performed together at Carnegie Hall on Saturday, 19 May, under the direction of Laurier Fagnan of the Chorale Saint-Jean. The piece they chose to perform was ‘Requiem for the Living’ in Latin.
Each choir member was responsible for covering their own expenses. They left Edmonton on the Wednesday prior to the concert, so they would have a few days for everyone to practise together before the concert on Saturday evening, and returned home on Sunday.
She showed a short video taken of the three choirs on the West Jet flight from Edmonton to Toronto, when the stewardess asked them to all sing Oh Canada.
She had never been to New York before, so she did as much sight seeing as she could handle. They stayed in downtown New York in an old hotel with a very small elevator, so trips up and down for the large group had to be carefully orchestrated. They took the subway to a local church for their daily practices, and she was glad she did not have to navigate underground by herself. She got a chance to walk around in Times Square and in Central Park and also took in a stage show. She found the volume of traffic and crowds of people to be quite disconcerting, especially the noise from all of the emergency vehicles that seemed to appear out of nowhere from time to time. They got caught in a downpour once and the number of jostling umbrellas on the street was more than she has ever seen.
She said that Carnegie Hall is a very large, very old theatre with excellent sound qualities. Their concert went off without a hitch. One disappointment was that they do not allow anyone to take photos or sound recordings in the Hall, so she has no actual proof that she really performed there. They ended their trip with a late night dinner cruise on the harbour, after their concert. She said that she felt very privileged in that a girl from small town Alberta, who did not understand Latin and could not read music, could somehow get this once in a lifetime chance. In closing, she said that we should always take advantage of the opportunities that life presents, or they will pass us by.
