Getting to Know Us: Natalie H.

Getting to know us is a chance for our audience to get to know the person behind to face, behind the voice that brings them beautiful music when they attend our concerts.  We'd love for everyone to "make friends" with us!

Today we'd like to introduce you to Natalie H., one of our fabulous altos.  If you have been to our first two concerts of the year, you might recognize Natalie.  She performed a Charles Ives solo, Yellow Leaves, at our November concert, O Voluptuous Earth, and she also sang the alto solo in the final movement of Haydn's The Creation.  

Natalie joined the WCC this year after moving to Wisconsin last year.  The WCC was one of the first singing groups she found, and she's glad she found us because of the fun repertoire this year and how super friendly we are.

Natalie has loved the caliber of music that we sing. She told me that the pieces are challenging in either the harmonies, rhythm, language, or all of the above, and she's never bored when singing with WCC. "Also, everyone in the group is very welcoming. It's like sitting down to sing with your family, except that everyone in it is great at sight reading."Natalie also mentioned that this year's focus on nature really appeals to her, too, since she has always loved the outdoors and preserving it.

Natalie's parents always encouraged her singing and her love of performing.  Her mom sang a lot in her youth and her dad was involved with the performing arts in high school.  She started singing in church choir when she was a little kid and always enjoyed singing and acting. The first thing she ever wanted to be when she grew up was an actress. 

In her own words, Natalie shared some more about her musical experiences: "I learned how to read music playing the flute in band class in middle school and took choir classes at the same time. I switched to just choir when I got to high school because of schedule conflicts. I started taking voice lessons at 14 years old and competing in local competitions. I performed mostly main roles in plays and musicals throughout high school and joined the school's advanced choir.

When it came time for college, I decided to go into opera instead of my original plan of paleontology (I'm secretly a big nerd). I decided I just couldn't live without music being a huge part of my life. I earned my Bachelors in Classical Voice from Roosevelt University. I started performing in operas and choirs my sophomore year of college and I have continued to do so ever since. Some of the groups I have performed with are Da Corneto Opera Company, Music by the Lake, Grant Park Apprentice Chorale, Heartland Voices, and Kane Community Opera. I'm currently singing with the Madison Festival Choir as well as the Wisconsin Chamber Choir. I'm also performing in Music by the Lake's "Brigadoon" this summer."  

It is very impressive & the WCC is grateful to have Natalie in our ranks!

Like Jennifer (and many of us in the choir) Natalie's favorite piece we've sung was Jean Belmont Ford's Sand County.  She says, "I really fell in love with Belmont's Sand County. It speaks of everything that I learned about and valued in my childhood on the nature walks with my dad. The harmonies are absolutely gorgeous and I've always held back tears at the very end of every time we've performed it."

What does Natalie do when she's not sharing her beautiful voice?  Well, during the day she is an Assistant Director of an after-school tutoring program for elementary students. For her it's really rewarding to change a little bit of the world during the day through education and change it through song at night.

In her few quiet moments Natalie is currently writing a medieval fantasy novel in my spare time. She also enjoy drawing and painting when she find the inspiration, and she have an active art gallery online. She sometimes volunteer at Blackhawk Farms racetrack with her boyfriend. He stewards for the race course and she help out taking calls from the corners in the main control tower. She is also addicted to the outdoors and will go fishing whenever she get the chance.

And now, the Lightening Round!

Favorite...

Color: any shade of blue
Food: macaroni and cheese
period in history: Renaissance Era or Pioneer Age
time of year: Summer
Famous dead person you'd like to meet: Jim Morrison
Composer you'd like to meet: Schubert or Whitacre
Book: anything by Neil Gaiman
Movie: Gladiator

Come hear Natalie & the rest of the WCC, She is One of Us, Friday, May 20th at 7:30pm at Trinity Lutheran.



Getting to Know Us: Jennifer F.!

Getting to know us is a chance for our audience to get to know the person behind to face, behind the voice that brings them beautiful music when they attend our concerts.  We'd love for everyone to "make friends" with us!

Our inaugural contestant in our getting to know us segment comes from our soprano 2 section and is the lovely (and well read) Jennifer F.!

(Photo credit to Kristine Anderson, who also made the gown)

Jennifer has been with the WCC for 3 years now, but her love of music started well before.  She attended the Preschool of the Arts her in Madison in its early years.  There she gained her start in singing and they performed musical shows for senior citizens, and in arcane skills like solfege and counting rhythms. She was a little shy at that age (as many of us are) so she enjoyed singing in groups.

In middle school, Jennifer tried her hand at piano for 2 years, but it didn't really take.  She did promise her piano teacher that she would continue with music by singing in choirs because she loves it, and she has ever since!   She couldn't list all the choirs she had sung with; suffice to say 3 high school choirs, 4 college choirs, 2 different choirs in grad school, and three community choirs before she returned to
Madison in 2004. While she wasn't a music major in college, but took enough music
credits on the side to advance an extra year in the housing lottery by the time she was a junior!  That's a lot of singing!

With such a love of singing, its no wonder that she eventually joined the WCC.  She had been back in Madison for a couple of years and was singing with two rather informal choirs, which were fun for socializing.  Looking for a bit more of a challenge, she joined the WCC.  Jennifer says, "Being with people every week who care about the music like I do, and with a terrific conductor, is very
satisfying. To me, performances are icing on the cake."

Jennifer has been around to sing a lot of great music with the WCC, and this year has been no exception.  It was a tough question, but her favorite piece she's sung was Jean Belmont Ford's Sand County that we performed at our November concert, O Voluptuous Earth, and again in March at the Madison Reads Leopold event.  (editor's note: come to our May 20th concert, She is One of Us, to hear us sing another Belmont piece, Sky Loom.)  Jennifer loves the piece because it is SO meaty with all kinds of challenges built into it, yet it's so beautiful that you are motivated to meet the challenges.

Outside of choir, Jennifer works as the Patients' Librarian at Mendota Mental Health Institute, a state hospital for the mentally ill.  She has a background in health sciences librarianship that let her to the job.  Her job is like that of a librarian in a small public library (purchasing popular materials, cataloging,
handling reference and interlibrary loan requests, running a book club, etc.), only with a smaller budget than most public libraries.  We made the mistake of asking what her favorite book is, which is foolish to ask a librarian, how could she choose?

Jennifer has some other very cool hobbies, which we'll let her tell in her own words:  This is the other part of my musical (and other) experiences: I take part in a medieval/Renaissance re-creation group called the Society for Creative Anachronism. I've been doing this about 14 years and in three different cities. There are events all over the US; in our "Kingdom" we have an event almost every
weekend. I've had volunteer roles such as newsletter and website editor, newcomer contact, choir conductor, and Provost of an annual performing arts event. I teach classes on various aspects of music, crafts, and history, and have earned the highest arts award in the Society, the Laurel, in the area
of Bardic Arts (music and poetry composition/performance/research). I sing my own songs and other peoples', as well as music from the period, solo and with several choirs. When not being a Bard, I practice other period arts such as embroidery, costuming, dancing, painting, cooking, and entirely too much camping in the summer. (You've got to camp if you want to stay up until 3 am singing
around the fire!)  And when not being a Renaissance woman, I like to walk, swim, travel, knit,
read, and play around on the computer.

And now, the Lightening Round!

Favorite...

Color: Caribbean blue
Food: Artichokes
Period in history: early-to-mid 1500s (Europe)
Time of the year: Spring and Fall
Famous dead person: Shakespeare
Composer: Orlando Lasso
Movie: The Breakfast Club
Anything else: I love singing with the WCC and hope I'll be doing it for a long
time!

We also hope that Jennifer will be singing with the WCC for a long time.  We hope that you will come here Jennifer and the rest of us at our next concert!

A Tale of Two Haydns

written by: Marin C. (alto)

There are some pieces of music that stick with you your whole life. I can still remember the setting vividly, although some years have passed.  I can close my eyes and picture the darkened auditorium, the orchestra sitting in front of me, me standing at the end of the front row of altos watching my director.  I can even still sing the first pages of the piece, even though we sung in Latin. 

The choir was my High School Varsity Choir, and I was a senior.  It was the only year I had an open time to sing in the choir.  The piece was Haydn's Te Deum.  When my choir director handed us the piece he told us that we'd remember this one and how to sing it forever.  He was right.  Those memories are some of my favorite memories of my senior year of high school.

Flash forward to this year.  It was a new choir, a new auditorium, a new orchestra.  The setting was grander, the orchestra bigger, the choir more experienced.  Of course I'm talking about the WCC's performance of Haydn's The Creation.

Haydn wrote both works within the same few years.  I remembered lots of similarities between the two Haydn pieces.  Both were fun to learn and a joy to perform.  This performance of The Creation will always remind me how I felt as a teenager performing the Te Deum, and how much I've grown since then as a person and a performer.  I also feel blessed by this wonderful music. 

We never totally know where life will take us.  Did Haydn know the scope of the numbers of people that his works would touch?  Maybe not.  Do we know the scope of who our works will touch?  Probably not. 

I hope I can say, several years from now, that I remember passages of music from The Creation.  I wonder what kind of person I'll be the next time I sing one of Haydn's works.  Whatever happens, and when ever it does, I know I'll still look back fondly and remember what it was like to sing the Te Deum, and now The Creation, and cherish those memories fondly.


(more on Haydn's Te Deum)

Spotlight on Gabriel, Uriel, Raphael and Adam & Eve

Its concert week!  All this week we'll be spotlighting different aspects of the concert that you will enjoy on Saturday.  Don't forget to purchase your tickets by clicking the Brown Paper Ticket link on the left.

One of Haydn's challenges in presenting the Creation was to choose "voices" that would share the story.  In Part I (that starts in the beginning and goes through the 4th day) and Part 2 (the 5th & 6th days) the story is narrated by three angles, Gabriel (Soprano), Uriel (Tenor) & Raphael (Bass).

Gabriel

In the Bible, the Angel Gabriel is seen by Daniel in the Old Testament and helps explains Daniel's dreams.  We see Gabriel again in the New Testament and fortells the births of John the Babtist and Jesus Christ in the Book of Luke.


In Haydn's Creation, Gabriel praises God & the work of the second day, brings forth grass & celebrates the creation of plants, brings forth water in plenty, celebrates the creation of birds, and more.


On Saturday, Gabriel will be sung by Soprano Deanna Horjus-Lang

Uriel

Uriel is known in some Jewish & Christian faiths as the fourth archangel.  He is not specifically mentioned in the Bible, but is referenced in The Book of Enoch, an ancient Jewish religious work not specifically known as scripture.

In The Creation, Uriel portrays the defeat of Satan's hosts (from Paradise Lost by John Milton), tells of the Heavenly Host proclaimng the third day, tells of the lights in the firmament, the sun & the moon, celebrates he creation of man, then woman, and more.

On Saturday, the part of Uriel will be sung by Tenor J. Adam Shelton.

 

J. Adam Shelton has performed numerous roles with companies such as Des Moines Metro Opera and the University of Wisconsin Opera Theatre, as well as appearances in Novafeltria, Italy with La Musica Lirica.

Raphael

Raphael, is also not mentioned in the Bible, but is believed to be an archangel.  He is mentioned in the Book of Enoch, and the Deuterocanonical Book of Tobit.  In Islam he is the Angel responsible for signaling the coming of Judgment Day by blowing the horn, Sûr.

In Haydn's Creation, Raphael tells of the beginning, tells how God made the firmament, tells of the seperation of waters & creation of seas, mountains, rivers & brooks, tells of hte creation of whales and all manner of other beasts, and more.

On Saturday, Rapael will be sung by Baritone Brian Leeper.

Brian Leeper has performed over twenty major roles with symphonies and opera companies in the US and abroad, including a national radio broadcast performance of Candide with the Cleveland Orchestra.

Part III of The Creation takes place in the Garden of Eden, as we share in the first happy moments of Adam & Eve.  In the Garden, the first couple thank and praise God, then share a love's duet.

On Saturday, Eve will be sung by WCC's own Soprano Madeline Olson.

Adam will be sung by UW-Madison Masters student Baritone Michael Roemer.

We hope to see you Saturday at 7:30pm to hear these wonderful soloists, along with our amazing orchestra & choir.

(author's note:  These pictures were taken using my flip camera while I stood in the alto section of the choir.  I highly recommend you come to the concert to see a much better view from the audience!)