Pitt’s Treble Choral Ensemble along with the Men’s Glee Club are gearing up for their holiday concert series. Several of the Dietrich School’s Student Ambassadors are involved in the TCE and shared their experience in preparing for the winter concert series:
Can you walk us through the process of preparing for the concert?
Kaitlyn Clougherty: Preparing for our December concert begins right at the start of the term - it's a joke amongst musicians that Christmas starts in August because that's when we begin rehearsing our music! We learn our parts with our director, Lorraine Milovac, during our weekly rehearsals. We supplement that with sectionals, typically about once a week, to go over tricky spots and work on memorization with our student section leaders.
Shanthi Mayadam: We prepare for concerts in many different ways. For example, a big element of preparing for a concert involves learning music. Every time our director introduces a new piece of our holiday concert music to us, she tells us about the composer or arranger of the music, when it was written, and why she wants us to perform this music. It's hard to do something unless you know why you are doing it, and background is important. We then attempt to learn the music. Our director plays the notes on the piano, and she asks us to try and read the music (whether that means focusing on the rhythm or words). We do that a couple times to get a feel for the music, and she slowly guides each vocal part (Soprano 1, Soprano 2, Alto 1, and Alto 2), and we put chunks of the song together each class. This process takes a few weeks, based on the difficulty of the arrangement. Along with singing for our concerts, we like to add movement and instruments to our songs, so we practice those throughout the semester as well. Once we have all the music memorized and a performance order decided, we organize how we will stand and process and lastly run multiple dress rehearsals.
What’s your favorite part about the holiday concert?
Kaitlyn Clougherty: The holiday concert is a very cool experience where we get to sing music from many different cultures, and get exposure to a ton of languages that we never would have outside of the choir. In recent memory, TCE has performed pieces in Latin, Russian, Ukranian, Hebrew, Swahili, French, and Arabic, among others, which represent celebrations of Christmas, Hannukkah, Kwanzaa, and other general winter songs. Having exposure to so many different languages and cultures, all within the universal language and celebration of music and singing together is such an amazing experience to have and get to share with our audiences!
Shanthi Mayadam: I love performing holiday music, since it is so cheerful. Being able to be surrounded by beautiful music for a whole day is moving. It is nice to express ourselves through song about all sorts of winter things, like celebrating Christmas or Hannukah, or watching snow fall or being around loved ones.
What songs are you most excited to perform?
Kaitlyn Clougherty: “Linus & Lucy” is a definite favorite amongst the choir, along with a fun jazz arrangement of “Man with the Bag”. “Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind” is another exciting piece with percussion elements as well!
Shanthi Mayadam: One song I am really looking forward to performing is “Svete Tihiy” (arranged by Pavel Chesnokov), a double choir piece within TCE. I really like learning songs in different languages, and this one is in Russian.
How long does it take to prepare?
Kaitlyn Clougherty: We work on our pieces all semester, starting with harder ones so we will have the most time to rehearse them and add more pieces throughout the term. Lorraine works with us during our 2-hour rehearsals on Monday and Wednesday, as well as our fall-term retreat, which is an 8-hour rehearsal we hold on a Saturday. Our section leaders hold sectionals periodically throughout the week, to work one-on-one or in small groups to ensure everyone is confident in their parts.
Shanthi Mayadam: Preparing for our holiday concert takes around 14 weeks (the majority of a semester). Within those 14 weeks, we practice for around 4 hours a week and have an additional 8-hour weekend practice, and 2-3 dress rehearsals. We as choir members also are required to meet with other choir members to practice music on our own 2x a semester (which we call a sectional). We also have deadlines to memorize each song we sing throughout the semester to space things out.
What’s the most difficult part about putting on a show?
Kaitlyn Clougherty: In TCE, we showcase a wide range of pieces with differing musical styles (classical, jazz, contemporary, etc.) along with a variety of languages. Working together to ensure we incorporate the correct vowel shapes, vocal placement, embouchure, dynamics, among many other aspects to produce one cohesive sound, which often changes piece to piece, is something we constantly work on, from our first rehearsal up until our final dress rehearsal.
Shanthi Mayadam: Learning how to embody and preform a piece to fit the context it was written in for a concert can be tough. Every piece we sing is performed so differently. Some songs are meant to be rich and reflective, and some songs are meant to bring the energy and excitement. Anyone can sing a song, but performing a song is totally different. Getting into the correct mindset and "vibes" for a song is really important and can make or break a show.
What’s your favorite part about putting on a show?
Kaitlyn Clougherty: We rehearse our music so much with each other, that finally getting to perform our pieces for an audience is such a rewarding element of being in the choir. Getting to have that connection with the audience through music, and feeling their reactions to a particularly beautiful arrangement, or a song with some more comedic elements, and playing off of those reactions is truly the missing element in rehearsals that can't be substituted with anything else!
Shanthi Mayadam: My favorite part of putting on a show is being able to perform for the people I love with the people I love. Being in TCE has been the highlight of my college experience, and any chance I get to sing with my choir is my favorite. It's extra special when it's a larger-scale concert since we get to share our love for music with a greater audience. It also is so awesome to see how far we have come from the beginning of the semester.
If you’d like to see the TCE in action you can grab tickets to their upcoming performances on December 7, here. There are also several more holiday concerts from other music ensembles from the Department of Music in the Dietrich school coming up. You can find information for them and links to tickets on their website.