Ornette Coleman proved in the early 1960's that collective improvising can have the grace and might of backyard summer symphonies: cicadas singing against birds, birds singing against grasshoppers.
The orchestra played with crackling precision; the impressive and sizeable Chicago Symphony Chorus sang with unforced yet robust sound and clear enunciation of the text.
It not only shows Holst moving from the influence of Wagner to a much more personal musical language, but also a wonderfully assured sense of pacing, which is so conspicuously lacking in the later symphony; Gritton sings it ravishingly, too.
However, for an instrument that has a keyboard like a piano, but can sound like anything from a symphony orchestra to singing kittens, the word "pianist" just didn't fit any longer, and the keyboard player was born.
The Nativity scene: pastoral symphony, treble singing of shepherds, the chorus gloryifying God and soprano rejoicing.
While thoughts of winning, fame and possibly fortune were on people's minds, all the hopefuls interviewed said they were thrilled just to have a shot at singing in Symphony Hall.
High on the list, needless to say, is Handel's "Messiah," and this coming Saturday you can choose between hearing the oratorio in its seventh annual presentation by the Hartford Chorale and Symphony under Henley Denmead, or singing it yourself with student-faculty ensembles at the University of Connecticut.
Shotgunned 3 K Cups and now I'm on my neighbor's roof singing Bittersweet Symphony to a fox/possibly a pile of leaves.
MM: Well, during the time I was singing with symphonies, most of that work was on the weekends so I had my weeks free.
By withdrawing we become unique; above the din we hear the overtures of a different symphony and can sing its beauty back to a cacophonous world.
