Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Organized Chaos: Concerts, planning, community

On Saturday we had a great concert! It was a day filled with rehearsal, making new friends and partners in music, and ORGANIZED CHAOS! With over 100 participants in the concert there is always a lot to make happen. With tons and tons of support from LCA leadership, singers, and partnering organization Sing Omaha, we had a successful day. There was beautiful music, a supportive audience, and a great time had be all (I hope!).

As we move forward into the holiday season and a concert on December 13 we again have some chaos as new music is handed out, old music collected, new seating arrangements, and new plans with a new venue and collaborations with old friends, Dulches Voces.

The life of a community choir (or any community organization I bet) has these ebbs and flows of chaos as a season or event is planned and executed. I am grateful for having so many supportive members of the choir and friends of the choir to help make these times of chaos as smooth as possible.


Thursday, October 18, 2018

What' Coming Up On the Concert? October 27, 2018, Holy Trinity Church, Lincoln, 3pm

Alright, you may be wondering, why is PAT BENATAR in this post? The LCA Fall Concert is titled, "Love is a Battlefield." LCA is exploring the way gender has and does play a role in relationships, romantically, socially, personally, spiritually. Helping LCA in the journey are the Sing Omaha Boys' and Girls' Choirs. This idea sprang up out of our Season Theme,  Modus Emotus: Exploring Human Emotion.

Pat Benatar's "angsty" love/ heartbreak 80s Rock Anthem touches on a few topics; youth, rejection, vigilance. Besides these emotions and concepts around love, LCA and Sing Omaha explore other relationship ideas.

In Ysaye M. Barnwell's "Wanting Memories" LCA deals with ideas of being comforted and wanting lost love and having regrets in the harsh reality of life. The Sing Omaha Boys reflect on the joy of love, so much love that you must sing. The Girls consider the silliness of a crush and depth of sorrow when someone you care about dies. LCA Women with the girls, reflect on the power of loving yourself for who you are inside, the strength you carry everyday. And the concert ends with the showstopper, "When Love Takes Over, " sharing the joy and excitement of love.

The choirs will "battle" it out throughout the concert and in the end join together to celebrate. Please come and join these great choirs on October 27th, 3pm at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Lincoln, NE.

Please visit our Facebook event page for more info and purchase tickets online.

Facebook Event Page

Tickets

Thursday, October 4, 2018

Reflections on Collaborative Artistic Endeavors, Grants, and What Drives the wider community to our concerts

First of all I need to say, I have no answers here on any of the topics I listed in this blog title. Also each of those topics could be a separate blog post. In fact, each could be its own entire blog topic.

In the past I have mused about working collaboratively with other organizations. No concert ever happens in a vacuum. We are always working with a venue and its personnel, we often have guest musicians on our concert like our upcoming concert with Sing Omaha. There are also other connections and things that need to be weaved into the construction of a concert, a season, and a culture of a choir.

In my role, I straddle multiple endeavors to prepare for a concert. I view my primary job as rehearsing and preparing the choir to to their very best performance. But with that comes promoting the concert so there is a great audience to support the work and music of the singers. Behind that is a board of leadership who helps shape the structure of the concerts and the season, and brings in money like grants. Receiving any kind of funding requires expertise beyond my abilities. But being able to contribute to that effort is necessary.

Figuring out what will excite a community to support any given concert is difficult. Culture show us that music needs to be ever changing and growing. The experience of the concert needs to incorporate more than just watching a choir sing.

But the biggest factor in this endeavor is the joy and support of the singers. If I do everything I can do in my position and they work hard, do a lot of self promoting and inviting, it seems we can usually pull off this unique artistic mode of expression.

Here are some links to previous musings on related topics form this blog.
Enjoy!

http://lcadirectorsconnector.blogspot.com/2018/04/spirit-of-collaboration-celebrating-100.html

http://lcadirectorsconnector.blogspot.com/2018/03/rambling-thoughts-on-tech-and-mission.html

http://lcadirectorsconnector.blogspot.com/2017/09/collaborate-create-succeed.html

http://lcadirectorsconnector.blogspot.com/2016/10/sharing-podiumpt-2-sacred-arts.html

http://lcadirectorsconnector.blogspot.com/2016/04/community-sing-outreach-concerts-as.html