Concert

Last night the "Deacon's Singers" had the last concert of which Magda and I will be a part. It was a joint performance with the campus Greek dance troupe - another student-led group that has enriched life here on campus. The joint program:

Christ is Risen (Slavonic, Latin, Romanian)
You Are the New Day (John David)
Alma Redemptoris Mater (Tomas Luis de Victoria)
If Ye Love Me (Thomas Tallis)
Paschal Exapostilarion (Bulgarian melody)

Omorfoula
Leventikos
Zaramo
Macedonian Syrtos

Intermission

Zeibekiko
Pentozali
Thracian Karsylamas
Dodecanese Syrtos

Et La La La (Ninot le Petit)
Die Nachtigall (Felix Mendelssohn)
Sweet Adeline (Harry Armstrong)
The Long Day Closes (Arthur Sullivan)
Christ is Risen (English, Greek, English)

A few thoughts, now that our time here is over. It takes a lot of effort to organize a choir - especially a small one, at a school where everyone's schedule is overloaded - but it can be done :). We've done a few challenging pieces of music over the three semester and if we had more time than the one hour we had for rehearsal each week, we could have done a lot more: the ability was there. Finally, this past semester, out of need, I took over conducting duties and it was a steep learning curve. However, it was also a great opportunity to learn to listen, count, and sing at the same time and to start thinking (towards the end of the semester) of how I would like to approach each piece. Towards the end I had actually gotten to the point where I could enjoy conducting, rather than hanging on for dear life...

And that brings to a close another interesting chapter. To be continued :)