Holy Cross College Choir

As the summer comes to a close, so does a spate of new renovations on the choir room.  Essentially, the room got smaller so that the neighboring bathroom could get larger, but we did get a new storage area out of the deal, and will add a slightly new visual angle with risers focused toward the south facing windows (to be installed next summer).

I’ve also been hard at work landscaping the repertoire choices for the year.  Among highlights are some catches, madrigals, Brahms waltzes, staged opera and musical choruses, a new Stabat Mater by Jonathan David, some Schutz Passion, Christmas favorites, Bach’s “Magnificat”, Poulenc’s “Gloria”, several tunes from the world of pop culture (a little Cold Play, some Tennessee Ernie Ford, and maybe some Beatles for good measure), a dose of Stephen Foster and William Billings, a touch of Benjamin Britten, and a chance at several other collaborations that are forming in the heat-filled last days of summer.

The thing I love most about planning for this group is their flexibility, their keen insights, broad interests, and the sheer joy of making music with them.  Each concert is themed, of course, and the ones this year will have a more pronounced dramatic arc, giving the singers a little more to delve into, and the audience a little more to hang on to.

New rooms and new chances to explore life and learning through one of life’s greatest endeavors.  What more could an HC singer ask for?

For those of you with calendars out, the dates are:

Oct 23 8:00pm “Pa$$ion” St. Joseph Memorial Chapel

Nov 19 8:00pm “Love and The Fire” Brooks Hall (Chamber Singers)

Dec 10 8:00pm “Lessons and Carols”  St. Joseph Memorial Chapel

March 19 7:00pm  “Reflections” (part of the Major Works Series) St. Joseph Memorial Chapel

April 22 8:00pm “Lights Will Guide You Home” Brooks Hall

~David Harris, Choir Director

It started off as a typical day: we all woke up in a sleep deprived haze, ate our now daily bread and cheese breakfast, boarded a bus to the sound of Paige’s headcount and ventured to the token church of the day, this time one in a famous Jesuit Mission. Oddly enough, despite how moved David felt, as we sang from the choir loft, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of routine. This sort of thing is who we are and what we do here and now: we visit churches and we offer some sort of impromptu performance each day (today in a choir loft, others in places like the local Starbucks). That’s not to say that the church wasn’t beautiful and that our performance didn’t impact the people who heard it. On the contrary, both of those things are true. Wherever we had gone and performed we were met with the smiles and laughter of the Argentinian people. But my point, is that as great as this sort of thing was, this beauty, had come to feel like part of a routine: get up, travel, sing somewhere slightly obtuse, repeat at least once daily – essentially be the traveling Von Trapp family.

The beauty of yesterday, however, stems from an interruption to this routine. We knew in advance that this performance in the Cultural Center of Córdoba was our last show of the year and for many of us, it was the last time we’ll ever sing together or maybe even see each other. I had to fight back tears knowing that our “core four Chamber Singer altos” will never sing together again: Nina will be abroad next year, Hannah’s switching to soprano and I’ll have graduated before Nina comes back from her year abroad. The feeling of loss from knowing that things would never be the same hung over us. We took pictures, we smiled, we pretended it wasn’t goodbye, knowing full well that in some ways it was. But the thing of it is, this sadness inspired us.

Knowing that it was our last moment as a part of this particular group, we poured all that we had into the performance. We smiled under the stage lights and danced to “Uptown Funk” for the last time, each of us allowing our motto (“Altos: we have fun”) to echo through our minds. We let our feelings inspire our performance. We said goodbye through song.

At the end of the show, at dinner in a gorgeous restaurant, we toasted our successes. “I almost cried after Soneto!” “We actually got that note right!” “That was the best we’ve ever been.”

I wrote earlier of something different in the air here. At the time, I had no idea of what that was. As the days ticked by and we joked about it still being “Day 1,” I came to realize that the “something” I’d been feeling was a tremendous amount and love and inspiration for the group I’ve led for the past year. We’ve never had a better performance. I’ve never been so proud.

– Julia Dunn ’16

Extranjeros: the Spanish word for foreigners which, oddly enough, especially when pronounced with a thick Argentinian accent, sounds like the English word, strange.

After an 11 hour flight, this was the word that marked our entrance into Argentina. “Extranjeros aquí:” two simple words which were printed in all white capital letters, with a footnoted sized explanation bellow. “Welcome to Argentina, just so you know, you’re a stranger here,” it seemed to be saying. Even without the translation, I knew what the words meant and of course that everything would be different once we left that airport. Gone was the small comfortable word of Holy Cross where everyone wears boat shoes and Vineyard Vines. In it’s place, was a terminal plastered with political ads and trees that looked crooked compared to HC’s upright Elms. It was as though literally everything was strange and different. Even the air felt different in my lungs.

After those 11 hours though, this “strangeness,” this new and totally different world, was something that I was willing to embrace. Okay, granted I probably could have used a few more hours of sleep, we all could have, but there was something in this strangeness that made us all alert. We each seemed to have that classic “Oh. My. God.” moment nonetheless. Forget the fact that there’s only 2 (maybe 3) hours of sleep in our systems, that’s irrelevant. This place, Argentina, is so new and different that we force ourselves to stay awake … even though at 4:07 AM there isn’t much you can see.

As we move onto our hotel and through the city, we learn just how “strange” everything here really is: the coffee is infinitely better than Kimball’s, the food consists mostly of different meats that we’ve never been served for breakfast before, you can’t turn a corner without the sight of something deeply political, everything is (not surprisingly) in Spanish and there’s a completely different culture. Our tour guide, Valeria, calls it a “mixture of New York City and France,” but it feels like something entirely its own. As we listened to the cries of protesters, walked through the church where Pope Francis was formerly the Archbishop, and sang “Lux Aeterna” in front of the grave of Eva Perona (Evita as most of us know her), none of us could deny the uniqueness of this experience. Like I said, there’s even something in the air that makes it all feel so movingly different. It’s like the blood of the city starts to run through your veins with each step you take. In an odd way, despite being an “Extranjero,” you can’t help but feel the heaviness of the city’s history and gasp at it’s beauty.

Yes, we may not be a part of this city in the way the natives are, and yes, it is all strangely new to us, but being a stranger and seeing all of this through our eyes is something beautifully positive. It’s a new experience for all of us and something so different from what we’re used to that none of us would dare to call this type of strange something negative. Now, as we wait for our 4:30 gig, where we have the chance to really meet and work with native musicians, we’ll all start off as strangers once again. But, much like our relationship to the city, as our time together continues, we’ll form a bond that regardless of how well we know each other will undoubtedly be beautiful in its newness.

– Julia Dunn, ’16

At the scene of our last rehearsal before the choir’s first international tour in nearly a decade. They sound amazing! It’s going to be a great week of singing and exploring Buenos Aires and Cordoba.

~David Harris, Choir Director

As the 2014-2015 year winds to a close, we have a lot to celebrate. Among the many exciting developments, we have the new Catherine Award for Service and Leadership inductees, Julia Dunn and Abe Ross, both of whom have been selfless in their commitment and leadership throughout the year. Julia’s keen insights as Board Chair, her sensitivity to group dynamics, and deft organizational skills, and Abe’s prodigious musical talents as Assistant Conductor helped the group solidify and grow in unpredictable ways.

The EBoard, after two years of soul searching and organizational thought, have completed and ratified a constitution that outlines the governance of the choir. Thanks to EBoard members Julia Dunn, Adam Ouellet, Diana Hurtado, Tim Rice, Rose Fusco, Sloane Burns, Nicole Costa, Hannah Gabriel, and Ally Rancourt for their service, and to last year’s EBoard for getting us started.

Congratulations to everyone!

~David Harris, Choir Director