The rehearsals for the WCC Spring 2022 "Broadway, of Thee We Sing" concert season begins Monday, January 31, 2022 7:30 pm. The music for this concert season will be the music selected for the cancelled Spring 2020 season. Samples of the music are available on the WCC website under the "Songs we're singing" for you to preview and enjoy.
Auditions are not required to join the choir. Please arrive early (7:00 PM) to register for membership and to meet with your friends both old and new. Note in these unusual times please watch for directions on where to enter the building and adhere to directions about room access restrictions. Everyone who wishes to participate including former members must register even if you sang last season. You may take the music home with you after rehearsal if you have registered and paid your membership registration fee otherwise you must turn the music in before you leave when the rehearsal is concluded. Another benefit of paying your registration fee entitles you to receive a free sample recording on a CD of all the concert music we will be singing this season. If you wish to have a copy of the music samples placed on a UCB thumb drive bring your own thumb drive with your name on it and give it to the director who will then copy the music to the drive for you and then return it to you.
Registered members should write the selection numbers on the front of each piece as will be indicated below or from the Concert Order document that you will also receive. The reason for this is that after the first rehearsal the music will very likely not be worked on in order. This will allow the music to be apportion allowing rehearsal time to be as even as possible. Numbering the selections will make it easier to quickly find what you need during the rehearsal. If we happen to run out of music packets more music will be ordered, and it should arrive within a week to ten days.
Full sample recordings of all the songs on our concert program are available now on this website under "Songs We're Singing" and on a sample music CD that will be provided once you have registered. Optionally you may have the music copied to a UCB thumb drive that you must provide. The following is a listing of the songs for the 2021 Christmas concert in performance order of the choir selections.
1. Sabbath Prayer (from "Fiddler on the Roof") w/Violin 2. Somewhere (from "Westside Story") 3. Opening Up (from "Waitress") 4. I See Stars (from "Mean Girls") 5. Part of Me (from "Dear Evan Hansen") 6. Razzle Dazzle (from "Chicago") 7. Monster (from "Frozen: The Broadway Musical") 8. A Whole New World (from "Aladdin") 9. Proud Mary (from "Tina: The Tina Turner Musical") 10. The Music of the Night (from "The Phantom of the Opera") 11. If You Don't Know Me by Now (from "Ain't Too Proud") 12. Popular Song - remix (from "Wicked") 13. Circle of Life (from "The Lion King") 14. Dear Theodosia (from "Hamilton")
All selections will be directed by the Resident Musical Director Lee Irwin Culbreth
rehearsal #1 on january 31
Registration, distribution of music packets. Greetings and general information. Presentation of all music selections. Successfully read through all selections.
Next week review selections 1, 3, & 2 Focus on: 10 & 5
rehearsal #2 on February 7
Reviewed 1, 3, & 2. Spent the remainder of rehearsal focusing on 10 & 5 making significant progress.
Next week the focus will be on 13, 14, & 4
rehearsal #3 on february 14
Reviewed 15 & 10. The focus was on selections 13, 14, & 4. Made some amazing progress on these. Keep listening and singing with your CD samples it is really paying off. Those interested in trying out for a line solo should definitely spend time with the CD.
Next week the focus will be on 9, 11, & 12
rehearsal #4 on February 21
Thank you to all in attendance as we made the best of the situation of not having an accompanist present. This naturally underlies the need for a backup accompanist. Using the recorded samples, we reviewed selections 4, 14, & 13. We then focused on selection 9, 11, & 12. In spite of not being able to focus on individual voice lines there was some amazing progress made. Keep up the good work!
Next week the focus will be on 8, 7, & 6.
rehearsal #5 on February 28
Battered and bruised Meredyth has returned to us by sheer will. What a trooper! After a quick warm-up we proceeded to review selections 12, 11, & 9. Then focused on 8, 7, & 6. These turn out to be the most challenging on our program but there are opportunities to come that will allow us to get them under our control.
Next Monday the focus will be on 2, 3, & 1
rehearsal #6 on march 7
Back to business as usual. Announced firm dates for auxiliary performances: May 11 at Ferlazzo for the Tribute to Fallen Officers of Prince William County and full concert at Locust Shade Amphitheater, May 14. After announcements and warm-up, the review was on 8, 7, & 6. Following this we focused on selections 2, 3, & 1.
Next Monday will be a full go through in concert order.
rehearsal #7 on march 14
The full concert review went very well. Not surprisingly there are a few selections that have some work yet to do but most are in various stages of near completion.
Next Monday the focus will be on 5, 10, 14, 4, 13, 11, & 6.
rehearsal #8 on MARCH 21
An ambition rehearsal plan including the usual warmup reviews (2, 3, 1, 8, 12, 9, & 7), focus (5, 10, 14, 4, 13, 11, & 6) and Finalized line solo tryouts.
Monday the focus will be on 7, 9, 12, 8, 1, 3, & 2. Once again, an ambition plan in preparation for the following week in which there will be a full program read through in reverse order.
rehearsal #9 on MARCH 28
Rehearsal #10 april 4
rehearsal #11 APRIL 11
help Wanted
NOTICE: We need an Assistant Director and a backup accompanist . Please let the Resident Music Director know if you happen to know of someone that can help out.
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Line solo and feature tryouts
Line Solos: Many of the selections on the program have an indicated solo, duet, and small group opportunities. It is not required but highly recommended that these be memorized. These will be filled by people willing to tryout in an audition process and that have been selected by a panel of peer judges. Ideally there will be a primary and a backup for each solo voice part chosen from those who tryout and are given the highest number of votes from the peer judges. Until such time as a selection has been made or if no suitable candidate is selected through the audition process the line solos are to be sung by the appropriate voice section within the choir.
Selections with line solos: TBD Features: None selected as of yet
Features: A Feature may be a single voice or any size ensemble of voices and may include special instrumental accompaniment. As with Line Solos, Features will be selected through the audition process. Vocal parts of Features must be fully memorized and concert ready at the time of the audition. Features for this concert will be limited based on the total length of the Feature selections accepted. A Feature must be unique and not a repeat of one of the choral selections or another Feature. It must be in keeping with the current Spring season theme. You must sign-up by the deadline (TBA) to tryout for a feature.
Preparation: During the weeks prior to the audition for Line Solos any and all that have an interest may sing the solo lines during rehearsal. Apart from that each candidate and in particular those interested in trying out for a Feature is responsible for preparation on their own time. Feature candidates are responsible for arranging time to meet with the primary accompanist or accompanist of your own choosing. Line Soloist are responsible for coordinating time with either the primary or other accompanist to work with them on their Line Solos.
Auditions: Auditions will be held on the specified date indicated in the schedule of events following a shortened rehearsal. Please note that the auditions frequently go much later than the normal rehearsal ending time. If there are extenuating circumstances that would prevent you from participating in the audition on the indicated date contact the Resident Musical Director in advance for approval to audition on the week following the scheduled audition date. The scheduled audition may possibly be extended into the following week if the audition process begins to run too late. All candidates are judged by a panel of volunteer peer judges. The final decisions for Line Solos will be made by the Musical Director that is conducting that selection on the program and will be based on tally results from peer judges. The decision for Features will be made by the Resident Musical Director and will be based on the results of the peer judges tally sheets within the limits of the allotted time for Features. In some cases a candidate may be tagged by the musical director for a Line Solo that they did not audition for based on their audition results for another Line Solo or in some cases their singing reputation .
Peer Judges: Any member of the WCC choir may volunteer to serve as a peer judge except those that will be auditioning. Those trying out for a Line Solo but not a Feature may serve as a peer judge for Feature tryouts only. Likewise anyone trying out for a Feature but not a Line Solo may serve as a peer judge for Line Solos only. Peer judges will be expected to participate for the full session however late that might be to include the extended week if necessary. A tally sheet will be provided to each peer judge. There will be space on the tally sheets to allow you to add notes about each audition that may help you decide later how to rank them. At the very least the peer judge will be expected to rank each candidate for a specific Line Solo as a 1 for the candidate they believe is the best choice, 2 for the second best choice, 3 and so forth for all remaining candidates for the specific Line Solo. For Feature auditions the candidates are expected to be superlative and not just average or worse. In a manner similar to Line Solo auditions rank each Feature candidate as they compare to all other candidates. One final thought on judging the candidates we do not necessarily have to have a Line Solo or a Feature. If you feel a candidate is not outstanding just leave the ranking blank. We are looking for something that will wow or at least impress the audience not just fill a spot just for the sake of filling a spot.
spring concert attire
Concert attire for Spring season is black trousers (pants) with length that touches top of shoes. Black belt, black socks (black hose) and black shoes. The top will be a new polo shirt design. Details to be announce later.
rehearsal etiquette
Just a little discussion about rehearsal etiquette. First of all we do want you to have fun and enjoy yourself during the rehearsal but keep in mind that the primary reason for being there is to sing not talk. So, for that reason you are strongly encouraged to come early to make and visit with friends before the rehearsal begins. You also have an opportunity to visit during the break and immediately following the rehearsal. Once the rehearsal begins please do not talk particularly immediately after the director stops the music to make a comment. Frequently a lot of people will blurt out comments which are lost in the clamor of noise as several people try to speak at once. Best practice is if you have a question or have an additional comment to make about the music please wait to be recognized by the director. Just a reminder from your perspective it may not seem disruptive if you begin to speak to your neighbor softly but in fact no matter how quietly you speak it impacts the noise level in the room even if you speak very softly and the more people that speak at the same time the louder the noise level gets. So once again please quell the urge to talk while the rehearsal is in progress.
Thank you for your cooperation.
some music reading basics
The Staff Musical notation is done on or about the musical staff which is made up of 5 closely parallel lines. In choral music the staffs are most often treble (or G clef) and bass (or F clef) as indicated as follows respectively:
This is the treble clef notice that the swirl focuses in on the G line of the staff
This is the bass clef, notice here that it curves to bring focus to the F line of the staff
There is also a third clef called the C clef but since it is not used in any of the selections on our current program we will not discuss that here.
The piano or keyboard accompaniment part is usually written on the grand staff made up of the combination of the treble and bass staffs as follows:
