Cairo Choral Society

Tonight we had the second of our choir performances. This week has been very full, with dress rehearsals on Monday and Tuesday, and performances on Wednesday and Thursday! I think tonight was the better night. Though it's a harder venue for listeners, it's better for us as singers. That sounds strange, I know. But in the auditorium (last night) we couldn't hear each other AT ALL. Tonight in the Cathedral we could hear very well...but there was quite a bit of reverb apparently, making it harder for people to hear, apparently. But we sang so much better! yay!

You may be wondering what we sang. Well, we sang three Haydn songs (in German) that were fairly amusing--one about harmony in marriage, how the man likes to do all these things and conveniently the woman likes the same things; one about all life's work being behind and death knocking at the door(Haydn himself being old when he wrote it); and one about how drinking water makes you mute like fishes so it's much better to drink wine. We sang a french hymn about the night. We sang Schubert's "Miriam's Victory Song", a setting of the song of Miriam in Exodus...in German. We sang Mozart's Regina Coeli (the words are something like "queen of heaven, rejoice, he is risen as he said! alleluia!")--in Latin. We sang Purcell's setting of the psalm that says "O Sing to the Lord a new song"...thankfully in English! And, last but not least, we sang Bach Cantata 34, about God's love being an everlasting fire or something like that...in German again. So, we sang a LOT in German. More than I anticipated. More than I like. German is hard. ;-) But it was fun and it was nice to have something to work on and learn. It was an amazing experience to sing to an audience in Egypt that was pretty mixed with expats and locals. There are Egyptians in the choir who are NICE! The orchestra (all Egyptian) was pretty good. The conductor was wonderful. All around, it was really great.

It was exciting to get all dressed up in concert clothes, to wear pretty shoes, to make sure to wear enough makeup for the lights, etc. It was also exciting to think "so there! I AM using my music degree somehow!!!!" Take that, mom and grandparents! :-) It's not a career, but it is fulfuilling and meaningful and good for me. I'm sad it's over, actually. I have really loved singing in this choir, getting out of the house every week to a nice place for a fun thing.

The after-party was fun too...good food, fun people, etc. And now it's 1.30 am and I am TIRED! Good thing tomorrow's Friday! :-)

I have to find a new fun thing to do now. We'll see how that goes. In the meantime...bedtime!