Vocalist.org archive


From:  "Sharon Szymanski" <szy@n...>
Date:  Thu Aug 1, 2002  2:14 pm
Subject:  RE: [vocalist] New sacred solos for mezzos

Karen et al:
I have sung this for years (I'm not a mezzo, but I masquerade as one
occasionally!) and have used both piano and organ. I prefer the
percussiveness of the piano, but it works with organ too (I love Karen's
idea of working with different stops on the organ). I also, years ago,
wrote out a part for the flute obbligato that I heard on the recording.
It's not hard, and is fun if you can get a flautist to play along.

Sharon Szymanski
> >> 2. "A Simple Song" from Bernstein's "Mass" - good for mezzo, low
> sop., or baritone<<
>
> This is such a fun song to sing. It has also gotten a great response
from
> my congregation any time I've sung it. However, our organist wasn't
the
> least happy about having to play it, because it isn't really
organistic at
> all. It is wonderfully vocal, though!

This is interesting. I recently performed this with organ, and have to
admit that the organist had a similar reaction at first - until I
suggested he experiment with some of the other "voices" of the organ. As
a
result, we were able to find different "voices" to express the different
moods in different sections of the piece - as well as a flute "voice"
appropriate for the flute solo at the end. The organist was so pleased
with the result that he's still talking about it, and also about looking
forward to working with me on other repertoire where we can be similarly
adventurous in finding appropriate "voices" for different moods in the
music.

Karen Mercedes
.






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