Christmas Concert Essay, Research Paper

I recently attended a Christmas concert at St. Augustine’s Church in Elkdridge.

For the most part, the choir blended well together. Sometimes the sopranos could

be heard more clearly because their section seemed to be the most powerful. The

choir had very clean cutoffs, which made them seem very unified. They

communicated the text pretty well. It was easy to sense the mood of the piece

from the expression they put into it. However, their dynamics could have been

better. They used some dynamics, but the range from piano to forte wasn’t as

wide as it could have been. Their diction was excellent; they enunciated their

consonants and their vowels were pure with very few diphthongs. I think this was

partly because their posture was good and because they sang with the perfect

mouth shape. All of them stood up straight and sang with a dropped jaw at all

times. I could not judge their breath support too well just by looking at them,

but I think it was fairly good because of the energy of the pieces they

performed. Even when they were singing at a piano volume, their energy showed

through and could be heard in the music. Without adequate breath support, this

energy would not have been possible. Their breath support also made for a nice

legato sound. They staggered their breathing well enough so that I never heard

any spots in the music where everyone took a breath at once, except for rests.

They were never off key either; their intonation was perfect. The sound was

always pure and on pitch, except when they sang in unison. Their unison was

still perfectly on pitch, but the sound was less pure because individual voices

tended to dominate the group. Overall, I thought this was a spectacular concert.

Like the choir here at Wilde Lake, I noticed some weaknesses, but their

strengths easily outweighed them.