Madrigals

[altivo]

High school madrigal group performed in the library this evening. I give them A for effort anyway. They had all their spiffy Renaissance costumes on and did a pile of less commonly heard Christmas music. The best number was the one their teacher conducted. Probably it was the most difficult too. The others they had a tendency to rush, and the pitch wandered enough to make me uncomfortable. On the whole, though, it was a creditable job.

Technical consultant who is installing the wireless at work cancelled for the second day in a row, though I don't think anyone is breathing down our backs to get it up and running.

Once the music was over and the afterglow faded, the audience left and we were nearly deserted for the rest of the evening. Not a bad thing really. And there were a lot of cookies left over. Most were (ugh) chocolate chip, but the peanut butter and the oatmeal ones were pretty good.

Comments

[hrrunka]

I expect they were a few orders of magnitude better than the five urchins who knocked on my door yesterday evening and sang "We wish you a merry christmas" at me in about seven different tunings...

[altivo]

You still get random door to door carolers? That's kind of neat, actually. I haven't seen that in decades here in the US. But yeah, these kids were rehearsed, fairly professional in appearance and behavior, and did four part harmony (though not always very well.) They suffered from an inadequate ratio of male to female voices, which is no surprise in that age groups. There aren't enough boys interested in fine arts at that stage, and it can be just too "uncool" to get up in front of an audience dressed like some Shakespearean character and singing something that isn't on the top 40 radio station.

Most of the audience seemed to enjoy this. You and I are probably more acutely aware of musical nuance than the average person on the street or doting grandparent would be. ;p

[hrrunka]

I think even doting grandparents might have winced at some of the... errr... "close-harmony" last night's door-to-door carolers were offering... ;)

[altivo]

Ah, the "give us something and we'll go away" approach. I get it. ;p

[hrrunka]

Yeah. Apart from their minder, they were, I'd guess, aged between 6 and 10.

[avon_deer]

The Carol singers come round here most Christmases. The odd thing is that a good percentage of them are of Muslim origin. O.o

I have never asked, but I am guessing they just like to feel included. :D

[altivo]

Well, Islam does consider Jesus to be a prophet of Allah, just not divine. "Issa" I believe he is called.

[avon_deer]

That might explain it. Either way, everyone seems to enjoy it.