Heavenly music

I had the opportunity to attend an amazing concert last night. My husband's mom, dad, and sister invited us to come hear their choir, the Bucks County Choral Society, perform their spring concert in conjunction with the Fairfax Choral Society at National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. I love choral singing. I love to sing, and I love to hear other people sing, but I hold a special place in my heart for sacred choral singing. I had the privilege in college of going on 2 concert tours with the Lebanon Valley College Concert Choir. It was there that my love of sacred choral music really took off.

There is something unique and magical about this style of singing. Unlike many church choirs (and I've sung in a bunch of those) each member of the ensemble understands that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. There is no soprano diva drowning everyone out on the high notes. No lonely tenor squawking to stay on pitch. No replacement of volume of sound for talent. Our beloved director, Dr. Getz, used to refer to it as "singing as one voice with many parts." In this style, the singers use their voices to mold and shape each note, each syllable, with love and passion and reverence. When it is done well, it is like I imagine it would be to hear the angels sing. I was in the anteroom of heaven last night.

One of the things that made the concert so special was the placement of the singers. Many of the pieces were sung with one choir down front and one up behind in the balcony. The other thing that brought the music to life was the venue. National Presbyterian has a very "live" sanctuary. For those not familiar with the term, a "live" venue is one in which the acoustics are such that the music is reverberated from the architecture - when the music stops the sound still rings in the air.

The last piece was the most special of all. It was written in the 1600's for 40 voices, each singing a different part. Since there were 200+ voices there were 2 or 3 to a part, but still, a very complex and difficult work to sing. For maximum effect, the choir members were placed all around the audience - literally standing in a circle, completely surrounding us. There were *eight* conductors to keep all the singers together. The piece is amazing. It is a musical tapestry - rising and falling, soaring, sparkling, dancing. By turns sounding like a babbling brook, a rushing river, a crashing ocean, a lullaby. Ethereal, unreal, all-encompassing, awash in sound. A musical glimpse into the greatness and the majesty and the creativity of our God.