Post-Concert Musings

We performed a delightfully successful concert last Sunday afternoon, a celebration of St. Patrick’s Day (which means Celtic music of course), and a few moments stood out for me that I’d like to share.  And apparently they stood out for at least two of our audience members because I heard directly from them about the innovative way we began and ended our concert.

I like to be a little different, to surprise the audience, and one of the ways to do that is the way we enter and exit the stage.  Since the stone-age choirs have been filing on and off stage, row by row, in sometimes endless lines…is there any reason we always have to do it that way?

There are times when that kind of entrance is appropriate, but why not play with audience expectations a little bit and do something unusual?

So on Sunday I and some MCE members wandered into the hall from the lobby and chatted with audience members, thanked them for coming, talked about the numbers we were going to perform, as we slowly made our way toward the stage.  After a few minutes I walked on stage from the audience and invited them to join us in our first number.  As we all sang Will Ya Go, Lassie, Go, MCE members flowed onto the stage from the wings and from the audience and took their places.  It was warm and inviting and natural, and according to at least two audience members, made them feel at home.

Then at the end, after the bows, MCE sang Will Ya Go, Lassie, Go one more time—with the audience of course!—and MCE slowly walked off stage into the wings, singing as they disappeared into the Green Room.  As their voices faded away our accompanist, Merry, and I also turned and ambled off, still singing—with the audience still singing too!  The song continued, even though the concert was done!

What a treat!

Dr. Linda Gingrich

Artistic director and conductor

Master Chorus Eastside

Thoughts on Erin Go Bragh

Master Chorus Eastside’s Erin Go Bragh celebration of Celtic-ness and St. Patrick’s Day arrives this coming Sunday afternoon, March 11, 3:00 PM at Kirkland Performance Center, and to whet your appetites, below is a shortened version of my program notes.  To read the complete notes, you’ll have to come to the concert!

There is an enduring air of mystery and romance that clings to the word “Celtic,” like the scent of fragrant heather on a hillside.  It conjures up images of misty green isles in the North Sea, singers and poets with magic in their tongues, mystical dreamers, wild dancers, and roguish tipplers.  This may all be myth, but interestingly, at their height, approximately the fifth to second centuries B.C.E., the Celts dominated middle and western Europe, from modern Austria into France, Spain, Italy, Turkey, and, of course, Britain.  So those of us with European blood in our veins can probably count a Celt or two somewhere in our ancestry.  And that is never more apparent than on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day.

Patrick is surrounded by legend, but he was indeed a real person—although not Irish!  He was born into a Christian family in Roman Britain in the late fourth century C.E., captured by Irish slave raiders when he was sixteen years old, and served as a slave in Ireland for six or so years before escaping aboard a ship and returning to his family in Britain.  But he had dedicated his life to God while enslaved, and the voice of God called him back to ministry in Ireland, where he served until his death on March 17, 461.  His day is still celebrated as a religious holiday in Ireland, but in most other countries, especially on our own shores, it bears little resemblance to a sacred feast.  Instead, it is an excuse to wear green, drink Guinness, march in parades, and trot out the only Gaelic words most of us know: Erin go bragh, or Ireland Forever, roughly speaking.  And of course, revel in Celtic music.

And we have indeed arranged a feast of Celtic tunes for your enjoyment.  Most of the music is Irish, of course, since to the modern mind Celtic is Ireland.  Some of the songs are quite ancient and mysterious, others are more modern, such as, surprisingly, the much loved Londonderry Air, better known as Danny Boy, which may only be a hundred or so years old.

Several of our tunes come from other traditional Celtic countries: Loch Lomond from Scotland, Welsh Lullaby from Wales, and Mouth Music from the islands of the Hebrides, a vocal rendition of an instrumental band that will set your toes tapping. 

We have even girded up our kilts, so to speak, and ventured into the intricacies of Gaelic itself with Dúlamán and Bean Pháidín, whose wonderfully evocative tunes and texts allow us to be vigorously and magically Celtic to our core!  And lest you feel left out, we provide an opportunity for you to don the Celtic along with us in our sing alongs.  After all, when Irish eyes are smiling, we all smile!

May you experience both the joy of great choral music and the delight of Celtic-ness in our concert.  Erin Go Bragh!  May Ireland, if only in our minds and hearts, indeed live forever!

Dr. Linda Gingrich

Artistic director and conductor

Master Chorus Eastside

An Emotional Journey

There is a palpable excitement in the air as we head towards our "Erin Go Bragh" concert on March 11. At last night's rehearsal, I felt a distinctive buzz in the room.  It's more than the fact that we are quickly approaching performance day.  It's also the feeling that we've reached the point where the music has soaked into our souls.  Past the point of learning and knowing the notes and words, we have absorbed the music.

I love this part of the performance cycle - where the music is learned and we focus on the more subtle shaping of the experience.  We refine our crescendos and decrescendos.  We add diminuendos and bring out key words.  We tell the story with our singing, our faces, our interaction with each other and soon the audience, under the vision of our director.  From the gentle beauty of the "Welsh Lullaby" to the moving depth of "Lagan Love", each piece connects us with diversity of human emotions.  

We've also memorized several songs which allows us to look around, smiling, stomping with joy for "Mairi's Wedding" and letting our bodies feel the rhythmic sensation of "Mouth Music".

This is the joy of singing in a group.  Of creating something together to share with others.  Of taking an emotional journey with the music, each other, and our audience.

It's countdown to concert time.  As a new member of MCE, this will be my first performance with the chorus as well as my first choir performance in nearly a decade. I'm delighted to be part of such a passionate group of singers and joyfully anticipate sharing our hard work on March 11.

Juli-Ann Williams

Soprano

What the heck is a "beetle's horn"?

Master Chorus Eastside will be performing the haunting, mysterious ballad, My Lagan Love in concert on March 11, 2012 3:00 PM at Kirkland Performance Center. 

In the song, there is the line:

"...and often when the beetle's horn

Hath lulled the eye to sleep..."

Now what is this all about?

How can a beetle's horn lull an eye to sleep?

And what is a beetle's horn?

And what is a beetle in this context? 

I began some on-line research with the entry, "In My Lagan Love, what is a beetle's horn?" Apparently this is a question which has been on the mind of many people.

The first entry seemed to hold great promise. It was a thread of numerous people attempting to shed light on the subject, triggered by the vital question:

"In My Lagan Love, there is the line:

'And often when the beetle's horn

Hath lulled the eye to sleep',

What the heck is he talking about? I have never seen it any other way, but it has the look of a transcription error from "beetle's hum" or something. Can anyone shed light on this?

Also, 'The Beetle's Horn' would be a great name for a pub".

And then there follows a thread of conjecture and counter-conjecture. I have not yet found in this thread an answer which seems authentic or even convincing. See if you can extract anything of value from this potential gold-mine of information.

Meanwhile, I will be moving on to other websites in pursuit of something definitive, or even credible.

I was hoping to be the first one to have a confident answer in case the question might up in rehearsal, but I don't think this will be easy.

There will be a prize for the first person to find a satisfying answer to the "beetle's horn" question.

And it has to be good.

Roberta DeBruler

Just another MCE Musical Correspondent

Taaallll Mouth!

Right in the middle of Monday evening rehearsal, and without interruption: we're singing these complicated Gaelic/Irish songs, and Linda is trying to get us to pronounce vowels vertically, a tall mouth, not the horizontal slit Clint Eastwood and Americans often use.  British/Irish style.

Midway through one of these I must not have been doing the "tall mouth" and Linda moves in front of me, continuing to direct all of us, and presses in on my cheeks (kind of like getting a dog to open its mouth for medicine!).  Taaall mouth!  The vowel!

It was difficult to keep singing, much less keep that tall mouth, as I was laughing so hard.  But ... message received, and I recall it vividly now while singing.

Very instructive.  Oh, we keep learning!

Bill Stanley, Tenor