Sing with us in our concert this spring
Auditions for Choral Singers: Special offer!
Attend a rehearsal or two with no obligation. Get to know us a little
and then we'll arrange an audition. Rehearsals for our spring concert start Jan. 12, 2010.
We rehearse on Tuesday evenings 7:00–9:30 at the Music Conservatory of Westchester, 216 Central Ave., White Plains (near the County Center), where
we are Chorus in Residence.
We welcome singers in all voice sections. To schedule a singer-friendly audition, please call WCS President Numa Rousseve at (914) 285–9026 or click here to email him.
What goes on in our “singer-friendly” auditions? In a five- to ten-minute session, you will be asked to perform a short vocal solo of your choice (not part of a choral work or hymn), which need not be memorized (but bring a copy of the music for the accompanist); sight-read a short passage (nothing too difficult); and vocalize to determine your vocal range. Music Director Frank Nemhauser says, “I am looking for quality of voice and the ability to read music/learn music. I would like to stress that the audition procedure will be short, and I am extremely kind during auditions.”
Coming Events
Our next concert: Sunday, May 2, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Our May 2 concert performance will be a program of French works featuring the exquisite Fauré Requiem, two settings of Tantum Ergo, and his Cantique de Jean Racine. Tickets are $25 (Students with ID $10) and are available at the door.
“I thought the WCS would enjoy singing this beautiful setting of the Requiem text. It is a much gentler setting than one finds in the Verdi, Mozart or Duruflė requiems. One imagines that Faurė's view of death is a rather peaceful crossing. After I settled on the Requiem, I got the idea to do an all Faurė program, including some well-known and not-so-well-known choral pieces as well as solo songs. Seems a perfect way to usher in Spring.”
—Frank Nemhauser
Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) won the premier prix in composition the École Niedermeyer in Paris at the age of twenty for his Cantique de Jean Racine. Later he was appointed organist at the prestigious Church of the Madeleine and subsequently taught composition at the Paris Conservatoire, where his students included Ravel, Enescu, and Nadia Boulanger.
The text of the Cantique is a French translation of a medieval Latin hymn by the 17th century French dramatist Jean Racine. The Cantique has captured the affections of choirs and audiences for well over a century.
Fauré composed three settings of Tantum ergo, the last two verses of the 13th century hymn for the Feast of Corpus Christi, Pange Lingua (“Now my tongue the mystery telling…”) attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas.
Although the Requiem followed closely after the death of his father in 1885, Fauré did not write the Requiem to memorialize a particular person but to reflect the scope and meaning of the text as he interpreted it. He omitted the traditional Dies Irae with its threatening imagery of the Last Judgment and Hell, concentrating instead on bringing comfort to the bereaved through the calming promise of ultimate peace. He added the In Paradisum from the Burial Service as the concluding section, enhancing his message of mercy and rest. Fauré commented, “They say that my Requiem does not express the terror of death; someone has called it a lullaby of death. But that is how I see death: as a happy deliverance, as a yearning for the you that lies beyond, rather than as a sorrowful passing.”