Pie Jesu, Water Night, and Sleep

I miss Vintage Singers. I admit it. As much as I love being in a college that has an actual theatre program, I so miss singing with the choir. If only De Anza had had a theatre program or Gavilan had an advanced choir. (We have a choir, but while it's good, it's made up of mostly seniors and is not nearly as awesome as Vintage.)

It's actually funny, how I ended up in Vintage. I was in my second year of college at De Anza, and fall quarter was ending. I had recently become reacquainted with choir music, especially choir boys and the South London boys' choir, Libera.

I had stumbled across a show on YouTube called I'd Do Anything, which originally premiered in the UK and was later shown on the BBC in the USA. The show was a talent show designed to scout out the West End's newest stars: Nancy and Oliver for Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber's new revival of the musical Oliver!

While the actual voting competition was only for the Nancy actresses, a group of 12 boys were also being looked at as potential Olivers. After a great deal of whittling down, three boys would eventually be chosen from this group to share the role on London's West End. Each time a boy was selected to move forward, he would show off his musical prowess with a song, and one of these boys, Chester, I believe, sang Pie Jesu, a beautiful soprano piece that simply floats through the air.



When I saw that video, needless to say, I was very impressed, and quickly learned the song and began singing it pretty much everywhere I went. Toward the very end of the fall 2010 quarter, I had it down fairly well. I was on my way home, walking through what I would later know to be the arts quad, and singing this song, not paying attention to how loudly I was singing.

All of a sudden, from behind a car parked near the building, a tall man with a full brown beard popped his head out from behind one of the doors and said, "Was that you singing Pie Jesu in the quad?"

Properly abashed, I ducked my head in a slight nod and said, "Yeah?" rather embarrassed, because my mother was always telling me not to sing in public because it was "embarrassing" and by singing in the quad, I was directly disobeying orders.

Instead of chastising me, however, he said, "You hit a high C. That's Soprano 1 range. If you want to join a good choir, you should come join Vintage Singers."

Now, I hadn't really been in choir before that (I'd sung one song with the choir club in high school, but that hardly counted) but I figured I'd give it a go. I signed up for Vintage the next quarter, and even though I hadn't realized it was an entrance-by-audition choir, I made it. I quickly found out that the bearded man who'd invited me was in fact Dr. Ilan Glasman, the choir's director.

I remember that during our first section rehearsals, Katie, one of the girls in the choir asked, "So, everyone's been in choir before, right?" and I was the only one really shaking my head. I laugh at the memory now because she was so surprised, and she was like, "You've never been in choir? How the heck did you even find out about Vintage?" and then the whole "singing in the quad" story came out.

Anyway, I had the absolute best time in that choir, surrounded by music nerds (De Anza has a music program, so a lot of the people in advanced choir -amazingly- know what they're talking about.) It was a great experience, and I learned so much in the two short quarters I spent with them.

My memories concerning Vintage came to the forefront of my mind today because today in my "subscriber uploads" list on YouTube, this video was at the very top:



I first learned about Whitacre through Vintage Singers, where in my first quarter, the theme of the concert was "Music of the Night". No, not Phantom of the Opera, but songs related to music. One of these songs was Eric Whitacre's Sleep,  a gorgeous little piece with amazing dynamics and those wonderful clashing chords he's so well known for. My friend Stephanie, knowing of my interest, directed me toward a video she thought would interest me: Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir's performance of "Sleep". It was breathtaking, and of course I immediately subscribed to that channel.

Here's the video of that particular performance. It still gives me chills every time. The dynamics are just lovely, and it really brings out those clashing chords. Enjoy!