The concert took place in beautiful downtown Rochester (home of the world-famous Mayo Clinic) on an even more beautiful afternoon. My friend, Steve, made the trip with me and, on the search for an ATM, we found these tulips right by the side of the road.
Since choral concerts are often held in churches, you sometimes get really lucky and walk into one that has some pretty cool things to look at. This one had a great 1-2 punch in the narthex. Here's the chandelier that greets the parishioners as they walk in.
Here are the little candle-thingies that were hanging from it.
Here's the baptismal vat underneath it. It's usually overflowing with water that drains into the elaborate copper grating underneath but, due to the noise, they turned it off for the concert. This thing must weigh a ton.
Also in the sanctuary is a slightly-larger-than-life statue of one of the Mayo brothers beckoning you to his lap. Creepy?
During the pre-concert talk the "Cullotwins" asked me to come down and say a few words about the 2 pieces The Singers would be doing. I didn't know about this until about 5 minutes beforehand so I hope I wasn't too incoherent. My time up in front of the audience was kind of a blur but I'm told I did alright even with a lack of preparation.
Here I apparently say something vaguely interesting.
Singing with the Choral Arts Ensemble was soprano Mindy Stephens. Since we graduated from Luther College together "Cindy Mevens" and I go way back and, through a stroke of luck, she ended up right behind me during the portions of the concert not sung by the CAE. I'll never forget the time I heard her sing Come Unto Him from Handel's Messiah with the full Luther Symphony behind her...just beautiful. It's still my favorite movement to this day.
In any concert where there is more than 1 ensemble participating, there was the obligatory "Wonder Twins moment." They did a piece arranged by Matt that was conducted by Mike. Seriously, folks...I challenge anyone out there to find another pair of identical twins in the field of choral music (or any other field, for that matter). I've seen non-Twin brothers conducting the same choir at the Los Angeles ACDA convention...but never twins. Funny it should be in the same state as the professional baseball team of the same name. Weird...
The post-concert "out to eat" dinner. I had this tremendous burrito (and a few adult beverages that understandably did not make the photographical cut). You can thank John Mackey for all the food pics that will end up on this blog. It's one of my favorite parts about his and all the different dishes he snaps photos of always look interesting and really good.
It was a great concert (with the CAE offering up another world premiere, The New Moon, by New Zealand composer David N. Childs) and The Singers pulled off Color Madrigals, Vol. 1 with the usual grace, precision and beauty. I'm so lucky to be involved with that group and to know these 2 fine conductors. Between their 2 organizations, they have commissioned a full 7(!) pieces from me over the years. (That's Michael on the left and Matthew on the right.) The CAE even released a new CD that night with my arrangement of Where is Love? on it as well so it was an embarassment of riches all around and I am totally thankful to be even a small part of it.
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