weekend roundup

Yesterday, I spent the vast majority of the day at Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral in downtown LA rehearsing for, and then performing in, a concert with 1200 other singers.

Yeah, that's the right number of zeros. Twelve hundred.

To answer your first question, yes, the cathedral is large enough to hold 1,200 singers and still have room for almost 3,000 audience memebers. Three thousand. It was packed. Standing room only. Really, it was unreal.

The whole thing was put on for a foundation that was started last year for the cathedral's resident organist who was in a terrible car accident and lost his right arm. The original intent of the foundation was to keep him economically viable in the face of his tragedy, but they raised so much money that now they fund scholarships for students to study to play the organ.

ANYWAY. The concert was... An experience. We rehearsed for almost four hours. It was intense. The main problem was that the space is SO BIG and the two sides of the choir were SO FAR APART that the sopranos (my section) were hearing the basses and altos almost a full beat after they actually sang, which made it sound to us like we were off, although in the audience, apparently, it sounded fine.

Ah, the physics of sound. It was incredibly challenging to sing in time with the movement of the director's arms, and not in time with what you're hearing. I'm not sure if we ever really got it right.

But it was definitely an experience.

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In other news, this is the week from HELL. We have a client with a suite at the Beverly Hilton all week for Oscar week who wants to have her hand held, and a huge photo shoot taking place today, tomorrow and Wednesday. If I survive to Thursday, we will consider it a success.