Last Sunday, May 24th, was my choir concert! I was so happy to have so many friends there supporting me, including many people from work who came to see both me and my college Youness.
The church was packed, and we were so excited to sing in front of such a large audience.
I spotted where Othman and his mom were sitting, saw he had the camera, and smiled for it! Most of the pictures were extremely blurry due to the lighting, but this one came out all right.
We opened the show with a very long, 5 movement piece in Latin called Te Deum by Karl Jenkins. Our repertoire this year also included some favorites from last year— Les Djinns by Fauré and Zahrat al-Madain, alongside a few more songs by Jenkins written in non-existent "African" languages.
We had another song by Fauré— Madrigal. I absolutely loved it and it was one of my two favorites, the other being Puncha Puncha, a Jewish love poem sung in Spanish. They were both absolutely beautiful pieces.
We also sang a traditional Sufi song in Arabic which morphed into a collective improvisation at the end. When our director Marie-Claire first told us about that idea a few months ago I have to say I wasn't sold on it, but in the end it was actually quite cool.
We closed out the night with Siyahamba, a traditional South African song that has a distinct gospel vibe to it. The song itself was just two refrains over and over, so we had fun changing it up with solos, "corporal percussion", and more.
Overall the night went by very quickly, and the whole show was exhilarating. We were all very proud of ourselves afterwards, and happy with the show. I'm so happy to be a part of this choir and to have the opportunity to make beautiful music every Monday night of the school year. We'll get back together in September and I already can't wait! I'll miss my fellow alto choir buddies Madeleine and Marie in the meantime!
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