[Toastmasters] Music in the New Hall

[Jerry McMillan]

I'm normally hesitant to broadcast concert announcements, but this seemed appropriate, based on my speech yesterday.

If you're interested in hearing what great acoustics can sound like through the full dynamic range that an orchestra and choir can cover, consider next week's Pacific Symphony performances of Mahler's 2nd Symphony. The first 80% or so of the work is a terrific orchestral piece, but what really makes it extraordinary is the last 15 minutes. After all of the orchestral bombast dies down, the choir (140 of us for this concert) enters, a capella (unaccompanied), with a dynamic marking of pppp, which stands for pianisisisimo (a marking of pp--pianissimo--is traditionally thought to be as soft as possible, this is two levels below that). After this exquisite hush, the choir and orchestra gradually build, finally climaxing in an ecstatic outpouring of sound (as should be apparent from my description, this is one of my absolute favorites in the choral/orchestral literature).

There are three performances, the evenings of Thursday, Feb 22 through Saturday, Feb 24. Because I'll be at the Area Contest (and I hope you will be too), I won't be singing in the Friday concert, but will be on stage the other two nights. All three performances are in the new Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center (R&H at OCPAC to us). For more information on the concert, and to purchase tickets, check out the Pacific Symphony's Web site, http://pacificsymphony.entericorp.com/

Jerry
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/public/toastmasters/attachments/20070214/cfb73c33/attachment.html