Every year when mid-October comes around, the Tabernacle Choir starts working on Christmas music for the annual Christmas Concert. We have many extra rehearsals which lead up to "Christmas Concert Week"--the week that we spend all of our nights at the Conference Center putting everything together, and then actually performing the concert. It's always considered the most exhausting time of the year for us.
Well, I can say without hesitation that Christmas Concert Week was nothing compared to the week we just had. A week I'll simply label as "Elijah Week"!
On Tuesday night (and after extra rehearsals starting clear back in November!), the Choir and the Utah Symphony and the four soloists met at the Tabernacle to go through the 1st half of the Elijah Oratorio. We took notes from the director, Thierry Fischer, regarding entrances, the need to enunciate more clearly (diction, diction, diction!), tempo, and several other things that came up. We then repeated that process on Wednesday night, this time going through the 2nd half. On Thursday we went through the entire oratorio from beginning to end, (including a 20 min intermission), and felt pretty confident that we were ready for the performances on Fri and Sat.
You've got to understand though, that singing this music is emotionally and physically draining. I don't recall ANYTHING exacting this much from me. So many of the songs are extremely intense and trying to ensure adequate diction just makes it all the more difficult. To add to that, while Thierry is an exceptionally gifted director, his expertise does not lie in choral directing per se. As a choir, we were largely responsible for entrances and exits on our own--which necessitated continual and precise counting. Our brains just had so much to do! It's hard to describe how focused we had to be. Needless to say, we went home each night ready to fall into our beds.
That all said, the performances themselves went very well. Both Mack Wilberg and Ryan Murphy, along with several others in the choir leadership, expressed compliment after compliment and informed us of all the accolades they had received from those in attendance. It felt good to know that all of the hard work had paid off and we had held our own on a world stage.
Personally, while I can appreciate this opportunity we had (and realize that doing hard things helps us grow and hone our skills), I'm glad it's over. With everything going on in my life personally right now, it was all just too much. I'm not sure my mental health would have lasted another day.
My friend Wes asked me on Friday night what my favorite song was from ELIJAH. I almost laughed thinking "You make a big assumption thinking I have any favorites at all!" But I do have to admit that amidst all of the triggering songs, there are a select few that brought me some peace. And I finally concluded that my favorite was one called "Cast Thy Burden Upon the Lord". It comes at a place in the story where the priest of Baal have tried, in vain, to have their God send down fire. And it's now Elijah's turn. The words to the song are the following:
Cast thy burden upon the Lord,
and He shall sustain thee.
He will never suffer the righteous to fall,
for He is at thy right hand.
Thy mercy, Lord, is great, and far above the heavens.
No man who hopes in Thee
shall e'er be put to shame!
This short song was very comforting to me and I was grateful for its message. Particularly helping me believe that God will be there when we fall--He won't leave us alone.
This helped to offset songs that had lyrics such as
"God is angry with the wicked every day, and if the wicked turn not, the Lord will whet His sword..."
"Wo unto them who forsake Him! Destruction shall fall upon them..."
"Take all the prophets of Baal...seize them and slay them!"
"Go forth; seize him! He shall die!"
"Yet doth the Lord see it not. He mocketh at us; His curse hath fallen down upon us; His wrath will pursue us, 'til He destroy us!"
"Blessed are all they that fear Him."
At any rate, you get the point.
All in all, I'm grateful for all of the people who sustained me during this experience. Their support and encouragement and optimism and sensitivity were much appreciated. And while I might have been one of the few who didn't love this opportunity, the feeling of doing something hard and receiving such positive feedback on the results, was gratifying.
ELIJAH....RIP.
Until next time, God be with you.
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