The Hillyer Community Chorus is a local volunteer choir that does performances of obscure and infrequently performed liturgical and sacred music. Last Sunday it did a fantastic performance of two works, an a capella piece by Gounod and a second piece with orchestra by Schumann. Both received well deserved rave reviews by critic John Lambert. Please check out his review, it may inspire you to attend their next concert in the Fall.
What is particularly humorous though is Lambert’s discussion of the orchestra’s performance. For each concert the Choir hires a group of professional musicians many of whom play with the NC Symphony. What is clear is that these musicians simply view this gig as a paycheck and take very little pride in their performances with the choir, who obviously are quite proud of their work. My guess is that for all of these Hillyer concerts the musicians do not look at the music outside of their very limited rehearsal time with the choir. In other words, it clearly seems like they are not practicing at all. Lambert’s description of the orchestra is priceless. After offering very high praise for the choir’s performance, he states:
The orchestra was fairly good, too, sounding fine where it mattered
most and holding back where things might have been a bit dicey. That
said, the orchestra’s performance surely benefited from the fact that
there was only one accompanied work to prepare for this concert.
Quite a compliment hey? I guess they really would have sounded great if there were no accompanied works to prepare for at all.
