well, that was pretty hardcore

Okay, that was pretty awesome, and also pretty exhausting. First, to get the rampant egotism out of the way point you at video so you can hear how we sounded, you can see our performance at this URL, scroll down to April 15th, and advance the video to the 02:14:30 mark. They also got footage of Archbishop Rev. Desmond Tutu coming up on stage and saying thanks and waving at us. (You can't see the entire choral group waving back, but we did. ^_^ )

If that doesn't work for some reason, UWTV is hosting a Windows Media version here that I can't get to work, but which other people say works fine for them.

Good luck finding me, btw; there's two shots where you can see my forehead in the lower left hand side of the frame, and one where you can see kathrynt and me in a medium shot, if you know where to look. But most of the time the choral cameras tracked the soprano section, and in particular, these same four sopranos in a row over and over again. Mostly I care because I'd hoped for one clear shot as video evidence I was actually on stage. ^_^

Anyway. Kathryn and I got there around 8:15, and got through security pretty instantly. The green room was large, which it needed to be, and they had f00dz, cough drops, and water. (We weren't allowed to bring our own, so.) Kathryn had gone ahead and gotten seats, so we proceeded to sit on our ass for three hours while pre-event performers did their thing (entertaining, but the monitor speakers were too loud) and then all the panelists took over for their 90 minute morning session. From that, I take away that Archbishop Tutu is surprisingly funny. He and the Dalai Lama make a funny team, too. I enjoyed a lot of the Archbishop's microphone time. I also thought he had the best things to say in general, really.

From that we went (after three hours of sitting) straight into the 9th, with NO WARMUP. The 9th is difficult enough as it is, so going in cold was pretty hardcore. This was also when we discovered that the monitor speakers and PA were apparently on two different wirings and out of sync with each other, so keeping timing together was desperately difficult; I think we did pretty well, tho' I couldn't tell it at the time and was horrified that we'd gone out of sync with ourselves and somehow couldn't fix it, but Kathryn said we were fine.

The performance itself flew by. I think we were a little faster than rehearsal last night, even, where we were pretty damn fast at the prestissimo. Also, my extreme nervousness - I could've used an antacid - make me have to fight not to revert to timings I'd learned on my own, before discovering the particular interpretations of Maestro Schwarz, but while I found it difficult, I think I managed it within a reasonable margin of error.

My voice was a lot happier than even last night; I'd worried quite a bit about that as last night's three times through the piece followed two days of no talking at all and a few days outright of no singing or vocal work, thanks to the strep throat. But while my tone wasn't optimal, I had good dynamic range control and even managed the high pianissimo notes with acceptably decent control, everything given. I started to come in a measure early at one point (fortunately other sections were already singing, so it wasn't into space) but yanked it back pretty instantly.

Then it was over and the woman next to me complimented me on my performance but I didn't really process it until later, so I hope I didn't come across as a bitch or something; I was just dazed. And we filed out (and ran into cflute, who posts about her impressions here), and had to leave right away so kathrynt could get back to relieve llachglin of emergency childcare duties as their original arrangements fell through.

Three groups of people complimented us on the way out (Kathryn doing all the talking) so I think they liked it.

Then I got home, ate, um, a slice of leftover pizza from last Saturday, and fell asleep. And now you have this. So yay!

ETA and PS: Thanks to kathrynt for recruiting me into this thing, and drglam for telling me HEY THAT'S STREP THROAT SEE A DOCTOR NOW. I've now shared a stage with the Dalai Lama and sung to the Archbishop Reverend Desmond Tutu and a planetary broadcast audience. (Broadcast, even, not just streaming media.) No part of that is something I ever really thought it would be likely for me to say. ^_^