Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Halloween & Tenebrae

Well, it's been a busy few weeks for us Singers.

Somehow, we did manage to squeeze in a couple hours for our annual Halloween party, thanks to our fabulous activities committee chairs, Cassie Rindlisbacher and Jason Ross. It was a blast of a night, with pumkin carving, lots of food, pumpkin dessert contests, games, and of course, costumes! When you stick forty incredibly creative people in a choir together, you never know what sort of costumes they'll come up with!

Jason and Cassie

Po the Kung-fu Panda (Jordan) and "The Coolin's Boyfriend" (Jonnie)
Anastasia (Mariah) & Evil Queen Regina (Karli)

Cowgirl and Miss Frizzle! (Rachel)

Waldo (Ben)

Mario (Ariana) and Luigi (Arianne)

One of many rather intense rounds of a game

Pumpkins
And the whole gang...
I spy....a Jedi, The Phantom, Mary Poppins, Carmen SanDiego, a Muggle, a Scientist, Rapunzel and Flynn....
What a fun group of people!!!
Thank you, Jason and Cassie, for such a fun night for all of us!

Granted, we did have to cut the fun short because the next night, we were invited to sing Rachmaninoff's Bogoroditse (Ave Maria in Old Slavic) with one of our most idolized choirs, Tenebrae, from London, during their concert. I don't think I can even begin to describe the feelings we experienced up on that stage with them. The sopranos in their group were so inspiring to listen to, and their bass, Adrian Peacock, could fill the whole hall with just his voice. As Jason said, "Only a brontosaurus can sing those notes!" It was one of those experiences where you just know you'll never forget it. And what an opportunity and a blessing it was to work with Nigel Short. Thursday night after the concert, we all made a mental pact that starting the next day in rehearsal, we would not limit ourselves by what we thought was possible for us. We realized that boundaries are not necessary. As Sister Hall would say, and as Dr. Staheli is constantly reminding us, we must simply "Let go, and let God." There's no telling what we can accomplish, and we look forward to seeing the fruits of this mindset in our concerts this weekend. Hope to see you there! 

Thank you, Sandefur, for the photo!

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Utah All-State Choir Festival

thank you to alumni, David Winters, for the beautiful photo!


Last Saturday, we were invited to sing in the Salt Lake Tabernacle for the first half hour of the Utah All-State Choral Festival.

We left Provo at 4:30, and by 5:30, we were in the hall warming up. Matt Nielsen flew in from USC specifically for the evening to see us perform his piece, and we were so excited and happy to see him, even if it was for such a short time.

At 7:30, after a few opening remarks from the Utah Music Educators Association, we walked on stage to sing. The audience was so receptive, and the performance became one of our most memorable. Everyone felt so uplifted, and we were truly grateful for the opportunity.

After a beautiful organ solo to segue, the 700-person high school choir took the stage under the direction of Dr. Geoffrey Boers. Their pieces all centered around love and the different types of love each of us experiences in our life time. It was a thrilling experience to sit and listen and brought back many memories for those of us who got to participate in All-State during our own high school years. During one of their songs, Dr. Staheli leaned over to some of the girls sitting around him and said, "We're singing this!" Sure, enough, we just got the music for it, and we are excited to learn the piece after hearing it performed so well.

Lauren, Kelsey, McLane



Thank you, Utah Music Educators for inviting us to participate in such a wonderful night of music making!

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Roster!

The official roster is up for this year's edition of BYU Singers! Go to http://singers.byu.edu/roster/ to see photos of all these good-looking people.

Thanks go to Devin Anderton for the headshots!

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Broadcasting Online Daily!

We are pleased to announce that BYU Singers rehearsals are once again available online! Tune in to see what goes on in the Madsen Recital Hall every day as we prepare for our concerts! And if you're in the area, we welcome visitors to come sit in on our rehearsals.




P.S. This means a sneak peek for you into our concert this weekend! Remember to visit arts.byu.edu for tickets!

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

First Concert!!!



Hooray! After only 3 weeks of rehearsals, BYU choirs are ready to show off the talent and potential this coming year holds. Come feed your soul in the DeJong Concert Hall of the Harris Fine Arts Center this coming Friday and Saturday at 7:30 PM. You'll be glad you did! Go to this link to get your tickets!


Saturday, September 15, 2012

Retreat, Fall 2012

Welcome to the 2012-2013 edition of University Singers! And what better way to introduce the choir than to share some of our experiences from retreat?

For those of you who are unfamiliar with retreat, this is the time we take at the beginning of each semester to focus ourselves and gather our courage for an intense weekend of rehearsal. While we take giant strides with the music itself, we also have the opportunity to hear from our presidency, as well as our wonderful director, Dr. Ronald Staheli. We got to spend time getting to truly know each other so that we can learn to trust and risk and "lead-follow, follow-lead." We review the Singers Psyche and what it means to be a member of this unique choir, and perhaps most importantly, we build relationships that will hopefully last into the eternities.

Last night, we met at 6:00 pm in one of the upstairs rooms of the Wilkinson Student Center (WSC) for a delicious Italian dinner that pulled everyone's abdomens nice and low, leaving our diaphragms plenty of room to expand (unless you were like me and ate so much that you left absolutely no room at all). Once our food settled, we cleared away the tables and assembled for rehearsal. We made some good progress, and then it was time for rotations, where we split into sections and spend some time opening up about our goals for this year, going over parts with Dr. Staheli, and playing games like "I Never" to get to know each other. I wish I had pictures to share from this, but suffice it to say that we all had a blast. We ended the night with brownies and ice cream while our president shared some thoughts and  Dr. Staheli introduced of each member of the choir (name, hometown, choral history, and some unique personal attributes). Every year he amazes us with his ability to remember so much about each individual with no notes! We absolutely LOVE working under his direction, and we left that evening eager for the coming year.

This morning, we all got up nice and early (some hit "snooze" more than others) to meet at the Museum of Art (MOA) and carpool out to The Barn. To clarify, "The Barn" literally is a big, wooden, red barn out in Mapleton. We are so thankful to the Thuesons, owners of The Barn and long-time friends of the BYU choirs, for letting us come and use the space to rehearse and rejuvenate. We walked in and were instantly greeted by the smell of dozens of pancakes on the griddle, sticky syrup, thick slices of ham, and fluffy, scrambled eggs, not to mention the watermelon, cantaloupe, grapes, orange juice, and creamy chocolate milk! They sure do spoil us! Most of us couldn't resist second helpings, and some people even went back for thirds and fourths (and in Jonnie's case, sixths and sevenths)! It was a great way to start an early, productive morning, and as soon as we could, we jumped right into rehearsal. We started off with some thoughts from our vice-president and Dr. Staheli, who opened it up for discussion about each aspect of our Singers Psyche. With all the blood rushing from our brains to our stomachs, though, it wasn't long before some of us needed a good stretch to stay awake, so that's exactly what we did. We jumped up, stretched, and began work on the morning's schedule of repertoire. Once again, we made some excellent progress, particularly on a piece entitled Everyone Sang, written for us by our own dear Matthew Nielsen before he left to pursue his doctorate in choral conducting at USC this year. We sang it all the way through successfully (and mostly memorized!) for the first time, and we can't wait for him to come hear us perform it. Thank you, Matt! Anyway, around noon, we took a lunch break and had some time to explore the area and play outside in the warm sunshine. One of our favorite things about The Barn is the pond/lake out back. It's always a blast to take turns in the canoes and paddle-boat. Luckily, we had no canoe-tipping casualties and soggy choir members to report this year, though it has been know to happen in the past. By this point in retreat, we're all pretty good friends, so it's fun to spend time with everybody. I think the pictures speak for themselves. :)
"The Barn"
(back view)


Top to bottom: Jason Ross, Mason Neipp, Brendan Owens, with Paul Black for support 

Karli West (me) and Cassi Rindlisbacher


Mark Zabriskie and Rachel Brown out on a canoe

Cassi's "I never..." was that she'd never caught a fish, so she decided to try. No luck. Maybe next time.

Steven Branham climbing in the rafters


David Hilton and Traci Brown

Andrew Ford and Lauren Butler

"Just around the riverbend....."

Chilling on the dock: (l-r) Heather Barton, Jason Ross, Marianne Bement, Cassi Rindlisbacher, Geneil Perkins, Lauren Butler, Brandon Bastian


back to rehearse


We returned for one more intense push of afternoon rehearsal, and by the end, I think we all felt exhausted, yet accomplished. You know, that happy/tired feeling? Something wonderful about Singers is that it takes such hard, focused work, but the end result is so rewarding. We get to spend an hour or more every day with some of the most incredible people this world has to offer, and we are so blessed to have the opportunities we do. We love our God, and we strive to allow His influence into the music we sing, for we know that it is only because of Him that we are here. We are so incredibly excited to see what this year has to offer and look forward to sharing our music starting this weekend at the Choral Showcase! We hope to see you there!