Choir Madness!!!

[Sean]

As I've mentioned before, I belong to a fantastic group of singers, the Hamburg High School Concert Chorale. Since out current director Mr. Norman Zogaib took the helm in 1998, the group has performed throught New York State, and Pennsylvania, and has gained a reputation as one of the best high school choirs on in New York, if not the East Coast of the US. Last April, we performed a concert at Lincoln Center, in New York City, and last June, we performed at the University of Buffalo. I'm extremely proud of our work, so I thought I'd post the recordings of the UB concert, a performance that Mr Zogaib said was the best he had ever heard the group perform over the past 10 years. We are going to Rochester New York this december to participate in the New York State School Music Association ( NYSSMA) conference there. During that performance, we will give the world premier of two of composer Gwyneth Walker's new compositions, commissioned specially for us to sing.

In May, world famous choral conductor Dr. Andre thomas is comming to Buffalo to work with us for two days, and then will direct us in a concert. This is a great honor, because he requested to work with us, after hearing some of our past performances.

Oh well, enough chatter, now for the good stuff...

From our concert at The University of Buffalo, June 11, 2008;

Requiem-by John Rutter. All of the movements of this song were performed consecutively, without applause. I think it took 15 minutes to perform.
Movement 1, Requiem Aeterna
[youtube]eweUKk_UZzU[/youtube]

Movement 2, Out of the Deep ( Psalm 130)
[youtube]S1yCHiVIkjU[/youtube]

Movement 3,Pie Jesu
[youtube]0h4qKtVfbWA[/youtube]

Movement 4,Sanctus
[youtube]ot3Lx_6pN84[/youtube]

Movement 6, The Lord is My Shepherd (Psalm 23)
[youtube]GJMmwbL8mkQ[/youtube]

Movement 7, Lux Aeterna
[youtube]40REaZIjsPI[/youtube]

All of the instrumentalists for Requiem, with the exception of the organist are HHS students, teachers, or alumni.

Hallelujah,by Ludwig Van Beethoven
[youtube]P-go6iZW9gw[/youtube]

I Will Be Earth,by Gwyneth Walker
[youtube]FlSqiFHw29k[/youtube]

Stomp Your Foot, by Aaron Copland
[youtube]N6Lzb1PIOl8[/youtube]

Turning the recording of the concert into YouTube music videos is an ongoing project of mine. Right now, I have 9/14 pieces complete. Hopefully by the end of the summer I'll have the rest completed. I also plan to do the same thing to any future recordings of our performances.

What do y'all think?

[RJDiogenes]

I just listened to "Stomp Your Foot." Very nice, as usual. At this point, I'm no longer amazed at the incredible high quality and professionalism of these recordings; I would never guess that this was a high school chorus. Everybody should check these out.

[Sean]

^ Neither is our director. He wants more now.

[RJDiogenes]

Heh. That's the problem when you excel at something-- people come to expect it.

[Sean]

This next installment comes from the Chamber Singers, a select group of around 25 students, selected from the larger Chorale group. I guess you could say that they're the 'best of the best'.

"A Foggy Day", by George Gershwin

"In My Life, by John Lennon and Paul McCartney

Enjoy!

( I wish I could figure out the YouTube bb code thingy...)

[RJDiogenes]

You just put everything after the '=' sign between the 'youtube' tags, like this (you can see what I did if you quote the post):

[youtube]z5uzvUAPDQg[/youtube]

[youtube]mhYtu62QWXQ[/youtube]

On a side note, I wonder why YouTube didn't email me about your new videos.

Those were nice; I especially liked the pictures you chose for "Foggy Day."

[Sean]

^ Thanks. I finally found a friend on Facebook who had some pics from the concert, so I'll try to use some of those in the vids I have left. I used the only one of Chamber Singers that I could find for "In My Life". As for "A Foggy Day"...Google, my friend.

Now that I know how to use it, that Youtube thing is pretty handy.

[RJDiogenes]

It's cool, isn't it? I love it when they show up right in the Thread.

[Sean]

"This Is The Day", by Gerald T. Smith.

[youtube]OvqdhdS29mg[/youtube]

This piece was performed by the women of the group, so it's only in SSA(A) harmony (two higher girl's parts, sung by the First and Second Sopranos, and one lower girl's part, sung by the Altos, occasionally splitting into two Alto parts). No men in this one. The women originally performed this at our spring concert with the girls from the school's 9th grade women's choir ( all 100 of them...), but Mr. Zogaib decided that our women sounded so good singing it alone that he included it in the program. Surprisingly, I actually found a picture of the song being performed, and included it in the video. Gotta love FaceBook...

Enjoy!

[RJDiogenes]

Nice. Very catchy. And that sunset picture is beautiful; at first I thought it was animated-- the colors seem to move.

[Sean]

^ It is a catchy tune. The day of the concert, before we left school for the University, we fooled around a bit by having the guys sing along. It was quite amusing.

I used that picture before, in the I WIll Be Earth video. I figured it seemed appropriate for the beginning of this one. And, in honor of one of the most annoying, and loudest, threads at TBBS...

THE WOMEN!!!!

Seems appropriate...

[RJDiogenes]

Spock should say that in the new movie.

And once again YouTube has failed to notify me of your new video-- very strange.

[Sean]

^ I only get subscription updates once a week, or whenever there's a TON of new videos uploaded by my subscriptions...I don't know if you can change that setting though. I check my page at least once a day, so I don't really miss anything a subscription puts up.

[RJDiogenes]

Once a week, huh? So maybe it just hasn't come yet....

I'll check to see if there are settings that can be changed.

[RJDiogenes]

I did get it, by the way. It came Thursday or Friday. They do only come once a week, and you can't change it.