Not Osheaga – But musical weekend was had

Alas, I did not score points on the hipster-o-meter this weekend. While the rest of the Montreal world was at Osheaga catching tunes and having some fun in the sun, I was on a choir retreat in Orford, Quebec, deciphering obscure time signatures and phonetically translating German.

I sing with an 18-voice women’s ensemble called Concerto Della Donna (our site is under construction. single tear at the lack of better linkeage). Having spent the past 48 hours rehearsing, campfire-building and McCauslan-sharing with this group, I have to say we’re a pretty darned group o’gals. We’ve taken 1st and 2nd places in CBC choral competitions, we’ve sung under Kent Nagano and Charles Dutoit. We’re conducted by Canadian choral legend Iwan Edwards, who recently retired as the Montreal Symphony’s choir master. He’s a musical genius and one of the most inspiring artists I’ve ever met, and Della Donna’s sort of his retirement project.

I generally tell people that we’re a “classical” ensemble – but realistically, most of the music we perform has been written in the past 20 years. The contemporary choral library of music is vast, very brilliant and very very cool. I’m talking funky harmonies and intellectually provoking arrangements of traditional texts (like Mass liturgy, poems, and prayers), indigenous Austrailian shark-welcoming chants, and Slovenian anti-snake-bite spells.

Tons and tons of cool music was leafed though this weekend, and I will be blogging on some of it as we get deeper and deeper into it. But allow me to post the lyrics of a piece called “Ground Zero” by Paul Stanhope. This tune is sung in 6-part harmonies, with layered syncopated rhythms, and with aggressive, impacting harmonies, ongoing repetition and verbally percussive singing, creates a real self-reflective impression of the actual effects of live art. Yay, self reflexivity!!!

Wake up
Wake up
Wake up
Wake up
Look around

Keep moving
A moving target is harder to hit
A moving target is harder to hit
Wake up

I think this stuff is really cool – when sung, it’s got a real street-art feel to it, like krump dancing or stepping, using the body and the breath as empowering ammunition for change. I think choral singing can be one of the most impacting forms of performance art – the immediacy of the human voice, the rawness of that simple instrument and the power of people moving their voices together – it’s a ritual of deep devotional significance, and one of the most thrilling ways I know to spend my time.