Chamber Choir - 3/24

Today we started by singing a Chilcott piece, the name of which escapes me right now. The women were warned that solo auditions for the beginning of the piece would be next week. The piece went very well until the end. The women had an ascending interval at the very end and were not maintaining the same space in the high pitches as they had in the low. Consequently they sounded bright and pinched on the higher note. Dr. Evans spent some time trying to get them to have a consistent, round tone through the phrase. He fixed the vowel and tried to model the sound he wanted, but they still weren't getting it. After several attempts to fix the problem, the rest of the class had gotten bored and were talking. Chamber choir already has a talking problem, so this opened the flood gates. The problem did not go away, although it did improve slightly. After that we divided into sectionals to work on Chilcott's Spanish piece. The woman remained behind. After fixing some articulation and rhythmic problems, Dr. Evans turned to the Sopranos again and focused on them for a long time. The altos began talking more and more until it became a really big problem and the section leader (me) snapped. Dr. Evans did not, has not, will not address the talking problem and it is driving some of us to the edge. I was very unhappy with today's rehearsal.