My Choir adventures!!!

For those of you who are a member of a choir, here is a prayer that our conductor shared with us as we left to our spring break. It has some musical humor that not all of you who read this might get, but just think about it. hahaha

Prayer of Confession for Choir Members

"Almighty and most merciful Conductor,
We have erred and strayed from thy beat like lost sheep;
We have followed too much the intonations and tempi of our own hearts;
We have offended against thy dynamic marking;
We have left unsung those notes that we ought to have sung,
And we have sung those notes that we ought not to have sung.
And there is no support in us.

But thou, O Conductor, have mercy upon us, miserable singers.
Succor the chorally challenged;
Restore them that need sectionals;
Spare them that have no pencils;
Pardon our mistakes, and have faith that hereafter we will follow
Thy directions and sing together in perfect harmony.
Amen"

My choir adventures this semester has been an interesting one. To get to where I am today, I will start at the beginning. I have been singing in choirs my entire life, or let say ever since second grade. I started with a children's choir, where I started to find my love for music. I remember singing with this choir at the Domes, at a retirement condo, Sunday mass, the cousin's center, at our cathedral, and many more places. A few songs that I remember singing and loved, were: Hashivenu, Siyahamba, and Sing a new Church. As I grew older into my teen years, my voice had "drop". Many who know me, my voice is still in it's upper range, and has not really dropped to the bass. hahaha. This meant that my voice would no longer really fit the "children's choir".  I was then introduced into another wonderful choir for youth and young adults. This choir was called the Central City Catholic Youth Choir. Through this choir, I adventured into the Gospel and African Spirituals, side of music. Singing music from the soul really shook my heart, and made me love music even more. There are many songs that I remember from this group. Some of my favorites were, Order my Steps, We fall down, He's Blessing me, For every Mountain, God is, Pass Me Not, Gospel Version of Awesome God, I love the Lord, Total praise, Come over here, We offer you praise, and many more. With the Central City Youth Choir, one of my fondest memories with them is traveling to Spain in 2003. What an experience and a privilege to share gospel music in another country. Right after the Spain trip, I had continued on in Highschool, at a boarding school. So I could not continue with the CCCYC. The choir unfortunately did not continue a few month after that trip.  I continued in my High school choir, also being a cantor, and singing in the Wisconsin School Music Association (WSMA) competitions. My two most memorable performances in my high school career, is soloing "O Holy Night" at our Christmas concert, and the "Star Spangled Banner" at the Bradley Center, for our High school Basketball game there. It was immediately followed by watching the bucks games as a free perk.  The entire High School days were an awesome time! I would love to be at those moments again.  My junior year of High School was also the first time where I received my first class in Music theory.  Of coarse through out all my years of singing, I learned little things here and there about music, but I did not know much going into college. I learned a lot by repetition and memorizing what I had to sing. When I came back to Milwaukee for College, I continued in the Adult choir at my church. Which is where I normally sing, besides at school.

Call To Action in 2009

For first year of college, I went to school for Psychology. After a year, I figured it out that it was not for me. So I transfered over to the music school and have enjoyed it ever since. As they say, I went from "Helping the psycho, to becoming a psycho". hahaha. Majoring in music was probably the best move for me. I was a little afraid of not getting into the program because I had no big music education, and I'm not classically trained. I do know that I am a hard worker, when I am. The next few years really showed that music was the right path for me. My grades really showed how much I enjoyed working with music. Of coarse my parent's were not to happy about it, but I had already transferred over before they even knew it. From there on, I joined the University choir. There, we sung more classically orientated music. Music that I was not really familiar with, but was certainly willing to try. I was in the choir for about two years, and now I'm in the Concert Chorale. This semester has been the most challenging yet for me, but it's for the better. We are doing all German pieces by, Bach, Mendelssohn, Brahms, and Herzogenberg. First of all, I have never sung German in my entire life! hahahaha. I certainly am learning the diction of the German language quick.  Second of all, I have not performed pure Classical/Romantic choral pieces. They can be very demanding on our own independence, and usage of chromaticism. All of this is great and challenging, but I like it. It is certainly helping me grow as a singer and as a person. In the roughest times of life, it makes it much easier if you make it a growing experience. Some of you may say, well this is not hard at all. To me it was. With my background and struggles that were happening through my life, I'm so happy to be where I am today! I also could not do it with out the support of all my beloved friends. You know who you are!

Thanks!

VaiKang


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