Chorus concert sails to the British Isles

The mood was set by the room’s frigid air and a crowd of people wearing plaid. The British Isles Choral concert this past Saturday at First Baptist Church on South Liberty Street was a cultural treat filled with the tunes of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Jennifer Flory, who directed the show and is in her fifth year of leading the choir, went to great lengths to prepare and gather the best pieces for the show.

“It was a mixture of looking at what we had in our library and then looking at just different British, Irish, Scottish and Welsh pieces that were out there,” Flory said. “I tried to choose some traditional tunes that were set and then also some original compositions.”

Among the traditional tunes were some age-old folk tunes in Ireland’s Gaelic tongue. Ala Bishop, an undeclared freshman, said she learned a lot in the process of practicing for the performance.

“It was really fun to learn Gaelic, but it was also really hard. I’m happy we had a woman who came that taught us how to pronounce everything word by word,” Bishop said. “With the song ‘Aililiú na Gamhna’ (‘In Praise of Calves’), the tempo of the song was really fast, but it was gratifying to be singing the song and to say afterwards ‘I know a song in Gaelic!’ “Some of the traditional folk music by the Irish was more likely to be about animals (“The Lark in the Clear Air”) or about drinking (“Níl Sé’n Lá”), while the British tunes were more in line with American themes like love (“I Love My Love”) and religion (“O, Pray For The Peace Of Jerusalem”). Although there may seem to be a pattern among the songs, Flory said that it is not so.

“The pieces that the composers wrote came from his or her own head and are not based on anything pre-existing,” Flory said.

To accompany the choir, a group of men from the Celtic Ties came, one of the men clad in a kilt while playing the hammer dulcimer and the other playing a snare drum.

“They are from North Atlanta and Mrs. Flory did not want them to have to travel down for our practices or rehearsals,” Bishop said. “The only time we got to practice with them was right before the performance which was very rewarding.”

Some of the pieces were special to the school, like “My Love Dwelt In a Northern Land,” a classically English song which had its American debut at GCSU in 2006, that had a sweetness in its harmony. The final song which was an original English composition, was the favorite of George Shu, a freshman psychology and rhetoric major,

” ‘Te Deum’ presented a challenge as it was written by John Rutter who composes with eloquence and complexity. It was a reflection of a full semester’s devotion,” Shu said.

Overall, the performance appeared to be a successful one, including a variety of songs from the 19th century to the 21st.

“The students have responded very well to learning the music. A couple weeks before spring break I wasn’t sure if it was all going to come together, but by the time we got back from spring break, everybody had their gears rolling. It has come out very well I think,” Flory said.

Posted by Joanna Sullivan on Apr 16 2010. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry