Music season

Chorus started tonight. For the first time ever, every piece my chorus is doing this year is something I've done before: Poulanc's "Gloria" this quarter, the Carmina Burana next winter, and Beethoven's Ninth in the spring.

"Gloria" was the first piece I ever did with this group, back in 1995. I didn't remember it at all until we started singing tonight, and even with a partial runthrough my memory is still hazy. That won't be an issue with the other two pieces, of course. This will be the fourth time I've performed Carmina. I might even be able to do it from memory by now. The Ninth I've only done once, but we memorized it, so I learned it really, really well. Even if he doesn't ask us to memorize, I may still work from memory -- it's so much easier to stand and sing for 20 minutes if you don't have to hold up a book.

Unfortunately, I had to bail on rehearsal early tonight because my foot was starting to bug me. Still not ready for sustained standing, I guess. I hope it goes better next week! The piece is interesting -- modern (written in 1959), somewhat jazzy. Should be interesting to see what I end up remembering. Bits and pieces were familiar. Having my notes from last time didn't hurt, either.