the german word “rorate” is maybe best described by “early-in-the-morning-christmas-time-mass “.
some friends and i decided to sing at one of those, which turned out to be the last one – just 2 hours ago.
luckily i got (almost) well again in time!

the church wasn’t lit at all, the only source of light were some candles, and every participant got one, too. up in the gallery we had some candles and a weak bulb for the organ. i didn’t want to use flash for the photos, so i stuck with my sony’s nightshot-mode for most of them. i didn’t take many pictures, anyway.

musically, i think it went really well. it wasn’t perfect, but a good result regarding the amount of rehearsals we could arrange and the time of performance: 6 am.
i LOVE to sing what is called “alpine christmas-songs” – traditional and almost unknown local christmas songs from some of tyrol’s valleys.
finally a chance to sing in a 6-voice male ensemble.

here’s one of the alpine christmas-songs for you:

[listen to sample]
ach mein seel’, fang an zu singen – zip [mp3], 1,1MB

 

[view photos]

 

merry christmas, everybody!

i’ve just released the latest photo-update.
i haven’t really had any good, creative photosessions lately – mostly because of a lack of time and energy.
most of the new photos were done for some sort of request.

[view photos]

i’ve also uploaded two live-recordings of that funeral on september 15th. i was singing there with “collegium vocale” – a great nearby choir that i wish i could take part in…
*thinking about time and energy again…*
i must state that i made those recordings with my mp3-player, which did a great job considering that it was actually designed for playing mp3s… anyway, i have activated a setting that allows the microphone to adjust itself to the surrounding volume, so it might take away some effects like dynamics and stuff. but it’s great if you have no idea how loud it’s gonna get…

[listen to samples]
bach – wenn ich einmal soll scheiden – zip [mp3], 726KB
schubert – herr, du hast mein flehn vernommen – zip [mp3], 1,12MB

yesterday was the second wedding that our vocal ensemble “cantus borg” was supposed to sing at. it took place in fritzens this time.

it was amazing!
again, i enjoyed it so much – i think i’ll finally need to get into a choir that has regular rehearsals and concerts.
i feel so much more alive after singing, it’s just great!

plus, now i know we really produce a nice sound. you can’t tell when you’re singing yourself, but i tape-recorded us yesterday, and it sounds a lot better than i thought it would!
(taking account that my little mp3-player wasn’t originally designed for cd-quality-recordings)

i even took some pictures, this time!

[listen to samples]
cantate domino (w.a. mozart) – zip [mp3], 184KB
lass mi bei dir sein… (tyrolean folk song) – zip [mp3], 442KB

[view photos]

today i returned from an 8-day-music project located in toblach.
“puschtra wind” is/was a youth wind orchestra with musicians from the pustertal valley and surroundings.
you might wonder what a double bass is doing in a wind orchestra – the answer is: there were two, not just one ;-)

it was totally cool, i had a great time down there!

there were rehearsals all over the day from 9am to 10pm. and still, marco (the other bass player) and i met early so we could play duettos and stuff.
i don’t think i’ve practiced that much in the whole last year!
and then, in the end, we held two concerts – the first one in toblach and the second one in lienz.

besides that, i met many cool musicians from south tyrol (which actually belongs to italy) and east tyrol.
i’m really looking forward to meeting them again soon!

so today i had to get up at 4:30am to catch the train back to innsbruck (altogether about 2 hours of sleep). and by the time i arrived, i was 10 minutes late for work…
the good thing about it is that, having slept only 2 hours, the working-time of 8,75 hours just flies :-)

i took some pictures when i was down there, of course…

[view photos]

yesterday our vocal ensemble “cantus borg” (ok, we’ll need a new name for that one too!) were singing songs at a wedding.
it was my former music teacher’s sister’s wedding, to be exact.

cantus borg consists of 8 persons, 2 for each voice. and we’re all from the same school and have (mostly) known each other for some time now.
this time i enjoyed singing so much, i really am looking forward to just the next rehearsal.
there’s another wedding we were asked to sing at, that’ll be in the end of august. soo happy!

things changed at some point in the last two weeks.
it’s like summer has finally started in my head&thinking.
it’s like my mind has opened up, like i moved on.
it’s like another 2 years have gone by, and the short phase in which i’m actually looking for social interaction is there again.
i feel that i’ve started to “go towards” people again and i’ve already met many interesting new persons.

i’m getting more and more motivated now. it’s the very end of the semester, and NOW i’m motivated.
yay me!

so despite that “kinda-bad” feeling i had all day, this trip to bad haering got really nice.
(we, the sms-quartet, were asked to play some instrumental songs at a choir concert in bad haering.)

sitting there and listening to the songs of the choir called “chor des gymnasiums der franziskaner” really made me miss my borg time…
i wish i had one more year to spend there with all my friends, although it’s hard to imagine (only the getting-up so early seems unthinkable now).
and i’ve come to think about our own choir-trips and little concerts… going to krems, singing in that church in salurn, and so on.

i really miss singing in a choir. i think it’s one of the best things to do – a group of people, coming together and singing and making that great sound nobody could just make alone…

and, still sitting there, i realized what kind of choir i really want to be in: a very small male vocal ensemble of singers that are all better than me.
where i really need to practice hard to be at the musical level they are…
just 4 or 5 guys, singing original zulu songs, and gospel (“IIIrd tyme out – swing low”, for instance), and gregorian chorals, and maybe some clasical stuff (bach chorals, especially).
and those great 30’s / 40’s acapella-songs (“ok4 – delta dawn”) where you gotta listen twice to note that there’s actually no instrumental music in the background, but it sounds so full and cool anyway…
and songs like “sinead o’connor – in this heart”

so you see, there’s so many great songs to sing, i just need the perfect choir (see above) to sing them.

once again, my own “pickyness” beats me.

and there’s something more i learned today: i’m already one of “the old ones”. i had felt it all the time, but today it got obvious again…
not so long ago i was sitting in the back of the bus with my friends, wondering why “those old ones” were still coming back and going on trips with our choir.
i wish i’d have made the right decision last week, i wish i would’ve gone to zell am see with my old choir…
guess i’ll finally have to take the risk and do what i want instead of doing what i should do.

by the way: we need to finally get a *real* name for our quartet. sms-quartet just is stupid – especially when stated that the “sms” stands for “special music school”.