This week my choir has been engaged in the very exciting experience of premiering in North America a gorgeous piece of music by a contemporary Argentinian composer. We are presenting Magnificat, by Leonardo San Juan.
When it was announced that this composer was going to come here from his native land to conduct our choir, it sounded like a good thing, but I did not realize how special the experience would be.
The way that the composer knows the music seems very deep to me, because it originated within him. There is something about that connection, being at the source, that makes the music feel alive for me in a way that I did not foresee or expect. If I may make a weak analogy, it is something like the difference between having a bottle of spring water, and taking a canteen and dipping it right into the spring where the water comes from. Not exactly ... but a little like that.
We have already had our first very successful concert event -- this past Saturday in Hoboken, NJ -- and will have another one in Manhattan this Wednesday, May 26. For details you can click the link on the sidebar of this blog or click here: Cantigas Women's Choir.
I hope some of you will be able to come, because this Magnificat is very beautiful and you will be enriched by it as I have been.
The highs and lows, successes and failures, smarts and stupids, joys and pains, ridiculousness and sublimity -- and -- the yin and the yang of one person's quest to master her singing voice and not give up, even if it takes a lifetime.
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