Letter from the Director : KaeRenae Mitchell
Greetings,
The Managing Board has been exceptional and brilliant during these stressful times, and have handled a multitude of challenges with grace and perseverance. Their commitment, dedication, and positive attitudes have been inspirational. Because of them, this semester has unfolded successfully. I know I speak for many when I share my gratitude.
At this time, we would usually be in the final stretches of our preparations for our candlelight concerts. One of our members sent 2 videos or portions of our last live concert in December, and it seems so very long ago.
October 19th marked the celebration of our first in-person rehearsal and tears welled when I was finally able to hear nine beautiful singers. What a treat after not hearing them for over seven months! (We had been conducting Zoom rehearsals because of the 5-person limit the university imposed.) Since we are not a class, we have to abide by the current 10-person social limit which we hope will be increased for the spring semester. We zoom our live rehearsals so all members can participate. The weather has been spectacular and we only had to cancel once when the temps were in the low 40’s.
All of our members need to be congratulated for their hard work this semester! After only two zoomed rehearsals singers submitted their recordings for the celebration of women at UVA on October 10. They sang an arrangement I made of Long Time Traveling Home, the hymn tune “White” from the Sacred Harp, 1844. This music, written by Edmund Dumas, has been made popular by the Wailin’ Jennys with their version of Long Time Traveler. I wrote lyrics that would be more appropriate for the celebration and the video can be seen here. The visuals were mastered by Todd Raviotta in Richmond.
The next weekend we participated virtually in the Children’s Hospital Day of Remembrance with our blessing, May It Be, in these videos: this one of our singers with the visuals created by Julia Kothmann, and this one with pictures of UVA by “Hoowithaview”. We are keeping this lovely music in our repertoire, and have already been asked to participate in next year’s Day of Remembrance.
We are scrambling to put together a video for Lighting of the Lawn on November 19. Non-conductors do not seem to know how long it takes to create a video! The audio alone takes me almost a full week to more than tweak, and the video takes time as well. If you’re interested these are the steps:
1. Learn the music
2. Conductor creates a guide track with individual parts and metronome beats
3. Singers submit audio tapes
4. Conductor waits and waits for them to be uploaded and pulls out hair
5. Conductor edits the audio and really gets to know each singer’s breathing patterns and placement of consonants; a treasure hunt ensues to find that cough, the squeaky door, and the misplaced lyric
6. Meanwhile, the chorus has selected a videographer and filming has taken place outside and with masks or inside and lip-synching
7. Several back and forths between videographer and conductor to finalize the details
8. Voila! A video appears!
Many of us are asked to be creative in ways unimagined before this pandemic and Mackenna Gordon, our alumnae relations chair, planned an awesome alum/chorus watch party and happy hour. We hope to have another one in December.
We thank each of you for your generous support of this great organization. None of this would be remotely possible without you. Did you catch that joke?
Finally, all best wishes to each and every one of you with hopes that you and your loved ones and friends will stay safe during this pandemic and enjoy the holidays in new and exciting ways.
Vdubz love,
KaeRenae