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baker_kittyOne of the major benefits of the festival is being able to hear performances by all these wonderful choirs that have come from across the world. The largest contingent, of course, is from St. John's, but really - all over the world. There were two separate groups from South Africa this year! (Wits University Choir and Ikusasa Lethu.) Other choirs included Ariadne from Sudbury (specializes in the more difficult repertoire (like R. Murray Schafer)), The Pacific Mennonite Children's Choir from Abbotsford, and the Heartland Youth Choir from Iowa. Lots from the other Maritime provinces, of course. Two from Edmonton. :) i Coristi and Kokopelli. :) :) :) I'm telling you, I need to go to more Kokopelli concerts… But more on that later.
We ended up missing the first World of Music concert because of jet lag/exhaustion. There were four such concerts over the festival. Each concert featured three choirs. Each choir did a set of music by themselves, then the three groups combined for three additional songs. Each choir's conductor got to chose one of those songs, and conduct the combined group. Because of the sheer number of choirs involved, and the fact that it was only four nights, the concerts were held in two separate venues, forcing the audience to chose between two fantastic concerts. *sigh* Not to mention the small choral ensemble (6 or fewer members) were in their own concert series on the same nights, ticketed separately. By luck as much as anything, we got tickets for the concerts in the ACC (the venue 20 minutes walk away from our place) instead of the ones at Gower United Church downtown. There was an in-festival shuttle system, but still nicer to be walking distance. :) I got free tickets for all the World of Music concerts with registration, and Rob bought separate tickets for the concerts I was assigned tickets for.
Two of our three concerts were absolutely lovely, and we thoroughly enjoyed them. :) The other absolutely blew us away. It was the second of the (two) main reasons I found the festival worth the cost, the first being the Come Solo choir (see earlier blog entry). It was the most amazing night… There were three choirs: a local group (CBC national choral competition award winning!) called The Quintessential Vocal Ensemble, Kokopelli, and the Wits University Choir from South Africa.
Lighter part of that night first. :) Some of the choirs had come a bit early to sing in outlying communities nearish St. John's in a pre-Festival event called Up the Shore and Around the Bay. Kokopelli (Edmonton) and a local choir - The Holy Heart of Mary Alumnae Choir were in one of the two outreach concerts together. In the process, they discovered they have a song in common - Russian Picnic. It's a very '40s('50s?) song, about life in Soviet Russia, and with a romance between the two lead soloists. Both groups can be wonderfully silly when they want to (without sacrificing the quality of the music), so they decided to do a joint production at Kokopelli's World of Music concert. Priceless. The introduction to the song involved a joke - the guy standing there talking about how parties are really easy to find in St. John's. (cue cheering :) Perhaps a bit too easy, said ruefully. (cue laughter) But (cue bad Russian accent) in Soviet Russia, the Party finds you!
The first soloist was a really tall guy from Kokopelli, and while he sang the Kokopelli girls all swooned over him while the guys stood by jealously. Then the female romantic lead came up. One of the older ladies from the alumni choir. :P The Kokopelli guys rushed over to swoon over her while the girls turned green with jealously. Too funny!!! Somewhere in there, there was a chorus where two guys and two girls (Kokopelli) moved to the clear center area and did some impressive Ukrainian dancing. :) The song finished with the romantic duet, and much laughter in the audience. :) Then the male soloist turned to the swooning gaggle of girls: "Say, any of you girls want to join me in a Soviet union?"
I know. Terrible jokes. But awesomely terrible!!!
Links in this paragraph are mostly to photos from the event. :) The order of that night was the Quintessential Vocal Ensemble, then the Wits University Choir, then Kokopelli, then "Sharing the Voices" (the three together). Good choice of order. The first group started with the quiet, refined classical stuff (beautiful!) and worked their way through to pop covers (U2's "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" with one of the guys as soloist and "You could have had it all" (Adele?) with a truly awesome girl as soloist. Then the Wits University Choir stepped up and did their set - traditional Swazi, Zulu and Vambo music. Finally, Kokopelli came up with a mix of traditional African music, classical, newly commissioned music (composer in the audience!) and Broadway musical. (their staging for "The song that goes like this" from Spamalot was awesome. *g*) They finished on Russian Picnic with the Alumnae Choir.
The really moving part of that concert was the sharing the voices. The Wits University Choir has members from three groups that normally don't interact AT ALL - white South Africans, black South Africans, and coloured South Africans. From what I remember from a talk I heard (prof did a sabbatical in South Africa), you can think of the coloured people as equivalent to the Métis here - descended from both black and white ancestors, but forming a distinct cultural group. They're also sort of left between the cracks - the whites have been traditionally advantaged, and the blacks are now getting compensation, but the attitude among many of the black people toward the coloured people is apparently "you weren't as persecuted as we were, so we deserve all the compensation." Note "not as persecuted as us" not " you weren't persecuted at all." From a different talk, if you go to South Africa (as of a couple of years ago, anyhow), if you're with white people you don't meet ANY black people, and vice versa. The idea of socializing with the other is absolutely foreign. So to see all three groups singing in one choir, one community - to me, that in itself was pretty damn powerful.
Most of what made the night so amazing was in what was said, and how it applied/related to the songs and the combination of choirs. I don't remember most of it. I remember the emotional impact.
Kokopelli has travelled to southern Africa to learn the music directly from the people who live it. Perhaps because of this, they connected immediately and strongly with the Wits choir. That said, the Quintessential Ensemble was clearly part of that larger new community. Seeing that mix of faces, and thinking of the history of South Africa (specifically discussed by the conductors in the introduction) - it was powerful. Then, of course, they had to sing a real tear-jerker to finish. (Paul Gross' "After the War")
The awesomeness didn't end at the concert; afterward the three choirs gathered in the lobby and jammed. :) Kokopelli and the Wits choir exchanged songs - songs they both knew, and taught each other songs. And danced in a big circle, with the dancing show-offs in the center. *g* There were quite a few Quintessential girls in there, too, and not a few people who weren't in any of the choirs. :) It's probably a "you had to be there" thing, but it made me think that maybe there is hope - not for an end to prejudice, not for an end to war - but for a growth of community in South Africa. For there to be communication and friendship between the currently isolated groups. Like I said, a powerful experience that night.
Later additions:
This video isn't from the World of Music concert I was at - rather, it was from the Up the Shore and Around the Bay concert series. But it's a great rendition of Russian Picnic, complete with dancers. :)
And this was taken at the after party - the song exchange between Kokopelli, the Wits choir, Quintessential, and assorted onlookers. :)
We ended up missing the first World of Music concert because of jet lag/exhaustion. There were four such concerts over the festival. Each concert featured three choirs. Each choir did a set of music by themselves, then the three groups combined for three additional songs. Each choir's conductor got to chose one of those songs, and conduct the combined group. Because of the sheer number of choirs involved, and the fact that it was only four nights, the concerts were held in two separate venues, forcing the audience to chose between two fantastic concerts. *sigh* Not to mention the small choral ensemble (6 or fewer members) were in their own concert series on the same nights, ticketed separately. By luck as much as anything, we got tickets for the concerts in the ACC (the venue 20 minutes walk away from our place) instead of the ones at Gower United Church downtown. There was an in-festival shuttle system, but still nicer to be walking distance. :) I got free tickets for all the World of Music concerts with registration, and Rob bought separate tickets for the concerts I was assigned tickets for.
Two of our three concerts were absolutely lovely, and we thoroughly enjoyed them. :) The other absolutely blew us away. It was the second of the (two) main reasons I found the festival worth the cost, the first being the Come Solo choir (see earlier blog entry). It was the most amazing night… There were three choirs: a local group (CBC national choral competition award winning!) called The Quintessential Vocal Ensemble, Kokopelli, and the Wits University Choir from South Africa.
Lighter part of that night first. :) Some of the choirs had come a bit early to sing in outlying communities nearish St. John's in a pre-Festival event called Up the Shore and Around the Bay. Kokopelli (Edmonton) and a local choir - The Holy Heart of Mary Alumnae Choir were in one of the two outreach concerts together. In the process, they discovered they have a song in common - Russian Picnic. It's a very '40s('50s?) song, about life in Soviet Russia, and with a romance between the two lead soloists. Both groups can be wonderfully silly when they want to (without sacrificing the quality of the music), so they decided to do a joint production at Kokopelli's World of Music concert. Priceless. The introduction to the song involved a joke - the guy standing there talking about how parties are really easy to find in St. John's. (cue cheering :) Perhaps a bit too easy, said ruefully. (cue laughter) But (cue bad Russian accent) in Soviet Russia, the Party finds you!
The first soloist was a really tall guy from Kokopelli, and while he sang the Kokopelli girls all swooned over him while the guys stood by jealously. Then the female romantic lead came up. One of the older ladies from the alumni choir. :P The Kokopelli guys rushed over to swoon over her while the girls turned green with jealously. Too funny!!! Somewhere in there, there was a chorus where two guys and two girls (Kokopelli) moved to the clear center area and did some impressive Ukrainian dancing. :) The song finished with the romantic duet, and much laughter in the audience. :) Then the male soloist turned to the swooning gaggle of girls: "Say, any of you girls want to join me in a Soviet union?"
I know. Terrible jokes. But awesomely terrible!!!
Links in this paragraph are mostly to photos from the event. :) The order of that night was the Quintessential Vocal Ensemble, then the Wits University Choir, then Kokopelli, then "Sharing the Voices" (the three together). Good choice of order. The first group started with the quiet, refined classical stuff (beautiful!) and worked their way through to pop covers (U2's "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" with one of the guys as soloist and "You could have had it all" (Adele?) with a truly awesome girl as soloist. Then the Wits University Choir stepped up and did their set - traditional Swazi, Zulu and Vambo music. Finally, Kokopelli came up with a mix of traditional African music, classical, newly commissioned music (composer in the audience!) and Broadway musical. (their staging for "The song that goes like this" from Spamalot was awesome. *g*) They finished on Russian Picnic with the Alumnae Choir.
The really moving part of that concert was the sharing the voices. The Wits University Choir has members from three groups that normally don't interact AT ALL - white South Africans, black South Africans, and coloured South Africans. From what I remember from a talk I heard (prof did a sabbatical in South Africa), you can think of the coloured people as equivalent to the Métis here - descended from both black and white ancestors, but forming a distinct cultural group. They're also sort of left between the cracks - the whites have been traditionally advantaged, and the blacks are now getting compensation, but the attitude among many of the black people toward the coloured people is apparently "you weren't as persecuted as we were, so we deserve all the compensation." Note "not as persecuted as us" not " you weren't persecuted at all." From a different talk, if you go to South Africa (as of a couple of years ago, anyhow), if you're with white people you don't meet ANY black people, and vice versa. The idea of socializing with the other is absolutely foreign. So to see all three groups singing in one choir, one community - to me, that in itself was pretty damn powerful.
Most of what made the night so amazing was in what was said, and how it applied/related to the songs and the combination of choirs. I don't remember most of it. I remember the emotional impact.
Kokopelli has travelled to southern Africa to learn the music directly from the people who live it. Perhaps because of this, they connected immediately and strongly with the Wits choir. That said, the Quintessential Ensemble was clearly part of that larger new community. Seeing that mix of faces, and thinking of the history of South Africa (specifically discussed by the conductors in the introduction) - it was powerful. Then, of course, they had to sing a real tear-jerker to finish. (Paul Gross' "After the War")
The awesomeness didn't end at the concert; afterward the three choirs gathered in the lobby and jammed. :) Kokopelli and the Wits choir exchanged songs - songs they both knew, and taught each other songs. And danced in a big circle, with the dancing show-offs in the center. *g* There were quite a few Quintessential girls in there, too, and not a few people who weren't in any of the choirs. :) It's probably a "you had to be there" thing, but it made me think that maybe there is hope - not for an end to prejudice, not for an end to war - but for a growth of community in South Africa. For there to be communication and friendship between the currently isolated groups. Like I said, a powerful experience that night.
Later additions:
This video isn't from the World of Music concert I was at - rather, it was from the Up the Shore and Around the Bay concert series. But it's a great rendition of Russian Picnic, complete with dancers. :)
And this was taken at the after party - the song exchange between Kokopelli, the Wits choir, Quintessential, and assorted onlookers. :)
