Messiah Choral Society of Grand Junction
Notes for Singers
Welcome! The purpose of the Messiah Choral Society is to create a production of Handel's Messiah each year on Easter Sunday and present it as a musical gift (admission is free) to our community. If you have not done this before, you will discover the wonderful glow that occurs in your heart when we finish presenting the gift i.e. singing the last "AMEN". If you have done it before, you are now familiar with the feeling of addiction that draws you to do it again.
REHEARSALS - We do not require you to attend a certain number of rehearsals.
We find that if you attend too few rehearsals the singing stops being fun
and you drop out. So attend as many as are required for you to enjoy the singing.
We do have one rule:
1. You must register to sing at one of the first three rehearsals. After that,
registration is closed for that year.
And some recommendations:
2. You should plan to attend the last two rehearsals and the dress rehearsal
in order to adjust to the acoustics of the Avalon Theater.
3. If you are new to Messiah, you will likely want to plan on attending all
the rehearsals. Messiah is a deceptively difficult piece of music and will
require not only the Sunday afternoon rehearsal time but also considerable
personal time spent with the rehearsal CD.
4. If you are an experienced singer, your presence at the rehearsals performs
a mentoring function for newer singers. All singers have experienced a mentor
in their singing career. Now is a good time to be one.
And some suggested courtesies:
5. Please refrain from talking to your neighbor during the rehearsals, particularly
the dress rehearsal. Our cost for the dress rehearsal is about $10/minute.
Delays in conducting the rehearsal due to talking not only subtract from the
effectiveness of the rehearsal but are very expensive in terms of wasted time.
The MCS does have a social aspect to it, but meet and greet before or after
the rehearsal or during the break time.
6. Please do not use perfume or after-shave at the rehearsals or concert.
Many singers are quite sensitive to strong odors and experience irritation
in their throats from exposure to them.
7. Jim Werner is our artistic director and as such has complete artistic authority
over the production. I am sure he will welcome your suggestions but he will
also be designing our rehearsal time to fulfill objectives that he holds for
the choir.
REHEARSAL CD - The rehearsal CD has a piano accompanying a small ensemble of singers singing each of the choruses. There is a special CD for each SATB voice so if you are singing alto, get an alto CD, etc. On your CD you will hear your part emphasized on the left stereo channel and the other 3 parts in the right channel. By adjusting the balance control on your CD player you can control how loud your part sounds relative to the other parts. The CD is a very helpful rehearsal tool even if you have sung Messiah many times before. We offer copies of the CD for $1 each. We will use the same rehearsal CD each year. Tracks 42-45 are of a duet and chorus setting of the text "Break Forth into Joy, How Beautiful are the feet, and Glad tidings" which are not in our score. We sang this number in 2007 and are singing it again this year. We will pass out a special insert for your score that it requires.
DUES - The Messiah Choral Society is a Colorado Non-Profit corporation controlled by its members. Annual membership dues are $10. Please pay dues by the 4th rehearsal. The revenue from dues is used to help offset the cost of the rehearsals (director, accompanist, and section leaders). In addition, upon paying your dues you become a voting member of the Messiah Choral Society empowered to elect the officers of the corporation at the annual meeting held at the rehearsal just prior to the dress rehearsal.
REGISTRATION - At the early rehearsals we provide signup sheets for New Singers and Returning Singers. Be sure to fill out the appropriate sheet to notify us you plan to sing. These forms are the means by which you are entered on our roster. You can also pre-register by sending an email to messiah@bresnan.net and listing your name (as you would like it to appear in our concert program), address, phone, and email address. Pre-registration will help us speed up the process of registering and will provide a name tag for you at the first rehearsal..
Each week we create sheets of name tags for each singer. When you come to subsequent rehearsals, please find and place your nametag on your clothing so other singers can address you by name. In addition, we use the unclaimed nametags to keep attendance records. If you miss several rehearsals in a row, we may contact you to determine if you intend to sing in the performance. This is necessary for us to determine the names of the singers in the concert program and the number of risers required to seat them.
In addition to the name tags, we print a Program Listing Confirmation sheet which lists your name as we intend to print it in the program and your contact information. Please review the information and correct it or check that it is correct as printed. Once you check your name, it is removed from subsequent printings so by performance time, this sheet is no longer on the table.
SCORES - We have new copies of the Leonard Van Camp score. We have had some bound with a spiral ring so they lay open easily. The normal paperback score is $10. You can have the paperback spiral bound at CopyCopy on North Ave. for about $3. Roper Music has some copies for sale. We will provide score covers before the performance.
CONCERT DRESS - For the concert performance women wear a long black skirt or black slacks with a long sleeve white top. We will provide an ornamental corsage for each female singer. Men wear black trousers with a long sleeve white shirt. We will provide neckties in two different fabrics for male singers. Orchestra players are in tuxedo dress and gowns.
******** Announcements ********
1. We will have 19 orchestra players. Misty Sothers is both our rehearsal accompanist and our harpsicordist this year. We will announce soloists as they are selected.
2. We will use the page at Rehearsal Notes to keep you updated with tips for use when practicing with the Rehearsal CD
3. The rehearsal and concert times are specified at Rehearsal Schedule. We will have a guest conductor on Feb 8th.
4. The list of choruses we are doing and not doing will be located at Performance Details. All are on the rehearsal. CD
5. The Messiah Choral Society is intended to be a musical institution in Grand Junction and to persist beyond the lifetimes of us all. Therefore, it is mandatory that the organizational tasks be partitioned so that each one is easily within the scope of the average member to assume. Your board has made up a list of committees and their associated functions at Committee Functions in the hope that you will read them over and select one that fits your interests and skills. We will have sign up sheets at the rehearsal or you can email messiah@bresnan.net or call me at 245-4914 if something suits your fancy.
It is my hope that the operation of this group will be assumed by 20 to 25 people that will find it easy to create an annual production and it will not require full time commitments by any one of them.
I want You!