“Voices of Timbuctoo” – John Brown Day’s Blog – May 9th Rehearsal

After a wonderful day of good food and conversation with Helen and her husband Joe, we headed to St. Bernard’s Church in Saranac Lake for the rehearsal tonight.  What a marvelous choir!  It is made up of singers of all kinds, including some that have sung at the Met and others that are just learning. There are several mother-son/mother-daughter combinations of singers as well.   Francesca and I add a father-daughter combo to this list, since she is playing percussion with me for the new piece.  They all sounded terrific tonight.   Helen has such a gift for bringing people together from all backgrounds around the commitment to making music of the highest level. This was no average community choir. They can rock!

As with all new works, we had to make a couple of adjustments to the score. Sometimes the ideas that live inside of composers’ heads don’t actually work in the real world!  I am so thankful for the suggestions tonight that made “Voices of Timbuctoo” better than it was inside of my head.