the tender land

May 9, 2008

Harvard’s dunster opera society and bach society orchestra are performing Copeland’s the Tender Land this weekend. This is awesome (to me at least) and I am going on Sunday at 3.

Here’s my relationship to the piece: i once got into district regional chorus, which was awesome and crazy and competitive and we had this awesome nutjob of a director who kicked our asses for many consecutive hours of rehersal before a one off performance. It’s probably the most challenging and horrifying music experience of my life because it was a lot of sight reading and really challenging on people’s ranges, and it was all non-easy choral work except for the star spangled banner.

That concert that day was awesome, it was the first time i ever heard Stolen Moments (Oliver Nelson) and the first time i ever got into jazz (what can i say, through my parents all i had was a litany of musicals and Barbara Streisand behind me). Awesome.

One of the pieces we performed was The Promise of Living from the Tender Land… we hated it. the accompaniment sounded nothing like any of the 5 completely different vocal parts, and while sometimes the vocals went together, it was almost impossible to peg what part of the creepy piano accompaniment anything was supposed to go. Meanwhile the director kept telling us we sucked hardcore. So much so that we had to do this self-critique exercise… to this day nothing is as scary as that experience. No one liked the piece… when we had a moment to ourselves we all badmouthed the piece. it was the only one people felt really shaky about.

a month later when i heard a recording of the piece…. i cried like a baby. I’ve heard other recordings here and there, but I am totally psyched for an opportunity to see this in concert. Very excited… so excited i’m taking time out of finishing my book and finishing a composition piece to go see this thing.

I’m including a piece from NJ state choir from 2003. Hooray for Youtube.

Filed under: music |