The Kohoku-ku Choral Society staged its annual free concert the other Sunday and about 500 people came. The eight-page carefully printed program listed twenty-two all-women choral groups and three mostly women groups with a seasoning of men.
Every group of 20 or so wore their own long dresses of a distinctive color, with the men wearing formal evening clothes and bow ties ("butterfly" tie, we say in Japanese). Every group had their own conductor/teacher and their own piano accompanist and page-turner.
The songs performed were mostly old-favorites from Japan and abroad sung in Japanese, but several were psalms sung in Latin. One group sang three different versions of Ave Maria.
With twenty-five groups to perform, each group had only about eight minutes to get through their program, which they had rehearsed weekly for a year. Still, given the lengthy applause awarded each group and the twenty minutes allotted to the conductor/teachers to show how they could sing, the program lasted a good five hours.
The program listed the names of the forty-four dedicated people on the Kohoku-ku Choral Society's committee.
- Mitzy Mitsubishi, mezzo soprano
No comments:
Post a Comment