The Week at Smith

Too busy to write!

Some random events of the week....

Tuesday morning. I was conducting a rehearsal of the large group piece, O Clap Your Hands by Orlando Gibbons, when there was a commotion in the Choir 1 Bass section. One of our participants had started to faint and been helped to the floor by the people around him. Someone called 911 and the stricken man was taken off to Cooley Dickinson Hospital, where they found nothing much wrong, maybe dehydration or interaction of meds.

We had moved from the stage to the recital hall downstairs while our unwell baritone was waiting for the ambulance, so we put away Gibbons for the day and moved on to the ritual of calling the groups -- each facilitator calling the names of the participants with whom s/he would be working using an icebreaker question, such as what is your favorite flavor of ice cream. But this time EZL asked, "when do your think the rain will stop?" and got a range of answers that identified who was an optimist or a pessimist. One person said "tomorrow" while another thought "when it starts snowing." I asked "which Michael Jackson song would you pick as cantus firmus for a mass setting?" which seemed a good music nerd question for a workshop like this!

My group is large -- 13 people. 9 women, 6 of them altos. I have spent the week pulling odd voicing combinations out of my hat. It has rained every day and the sky seems permanently threatening.