Last night I attended a rehearsal where Maestro Jahja Ling worked with the chorale for the first time on this music. It was a wonderful rehearsal. He devoted all three hours to my piece and took so much care with each moment that he didn’t have time for the last 5 minutes of the piece. He had a great rapport with the choir who clearly loves singing for him. Perhaps the most meaningful part of the rehearsal was how much attention he gave to text expression. He had a clear idea of how each musical phrase should communicate the text. It was truly wonderful to have the conductor so in tune with my intentions.
I have been quite nervous about this piece since early January. It has taken months and months to create and I have never done anything remotely similar before. I’ve done everything I know to make it a great piece, yet I have no past experience to know if this piece will ultimately work. Last night was such a relief because I am starting to get a glimpse of the whole piece and I am feeling very good about it. Although the vocal soloists won’t arrive till next week, the dramatic arch of the choral parts are working really well. The chorus sounds great and I now know that the maestro knows the piece and will do a marvelous job in preparing this performance.
The next big piece of the puzzle will come Wednesday night when the orchestra rehearses the piece for the first time.
Thoughts about
I have never before visited a city where the airport is in the middle of the city. The first time I flew in I felt like I could see in people’s living rooms as the plane dropped to the level of apartments. On the ground, it is wild to see planes flying so low. As I type, a plane flies by my hotel room every 10 minutes or so. Its sort of creepy.
The weather is really great. I took a long walk earlier through
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