[musictlk] choral auditions

[Sandra Streeter]

On the other hand, in my 24-plus-year history with the Mystic River Chorale, it just seems to be the way of choruses: we have plenty of sops., and a dearth of other voicings (especially tenors, of which our group has 3, in a membership of 40)! I don’t know what makes guys (and, for that matter, lady tenors) so reluctant to join groups. At any rate, it’s worth not taking it personally. Maybe you could offer to audition, then take a trial run, where you’d have a chance to prove your competence and show the director that belonging wouldn’t be a hardship to him/her or to the group. I had an easy in, to the Chorale, in the early days—met up with a high school chum at my workplace, and latched on to her for transportation and some reading assistance. I later left for some out-of-state academic training for a year and a half, and when I returned, got re-connected with the Chorale via different channels, since my friend had left and it was under a new artistic director. For me, the trick was being bold enough to seek out the assistance I neded, yet not being too nedy, thereby setting people off.Like anything in the blindness world, it is a tight balance between advocacy and doing as much as is humanly possible independently. I have rarely seen the Chorale fail me, and never, in transportation; there were times we sent a sign-up sheet around, when people couldn’t handle every week but could each pull a little of the transportation weight; in reading (since I don’t use Braille notation), I have several recruits, so that I can split the work between them, thereby ensuring that I get the music transcribed more quickly (since I’m the one taking dictation and doing the Brailling), and that no one person gets tired. The only thing I didn’t find worked was this Spring, when we were tasked with Greg Bullen’s “The Orchard: Songs of Fruit and Love”, a very challenging piece, with several sections in the final mvt that were rhythmically quite difficult; I wanted to recruit a volunteer to do some speaking in rhythm with counted rhythms in between, but didn’t find anyone, so slaved over that for an hour and mastered far more than I had thought possible. I think that what has made my choral experiences (Chorale and others) successful is that I’m a team player who believes there are other team players who can help where neded, and I do try to strike the balance mentioned above. Hope this helps. If you want to chat more off-list, Ann, feel fre to contact me.



Sandra
sandrastreeter381 at gmail.com

Sandra
“To love another person is to se the face of God.”
(Les Miserables—the musical)