We are back, singing in person

Cerddorion is singing in person again. Concert venues in New York State are required to ensure that all performers and attendees be vaccinated.

We are rehearsing distanced and masked. Most of us wear special brackets under our masks to create space between our faces and the masks. Singing with masks is a challenge. Since the regular rehearsal space is not available, we rehearse in the church sanctuary. This poses an additional challenge, because the echo that makes a concert sound good also makes rehearsing difficult.

But we muddle along, and we are enjoying rehearsal more than usual, as it has been so long since we sang together.

Our concert will be on Sunday, November 21, 2021 at 3pm Eastern Time, St Ignatius of Antioch Church on W 87 St at West End Ave. See https://cerddorion.org for tickets. The link will be ready soon.

 

Our live June concert is available for viewing

 On June 10, 2021, we overcame many technical obstacles and performed live on the web. It was the world premiere of Sidney Boquiren's commissioned work, Arise. Please enjoy it if you haven't yet.

 The music begins a few minutes after the video starts.

Arise: A Live Online Concert, June 10, 2022, 8pm US/Eastern Time

On Thursday, June 10 at 8 p.m., Cerddorion Vocal Ensemble will perform our debut concert via live-remote performance. Neither a pre-recorded "virtual choir" nor an in-person concert, this event will use software that enables us to sing together in real time, from physically distant locations. 

Our program is itself a world premiere: Arise, by New York composer Sidney Boquiren, is a compelling setting of the words of prominent U.S. suffragists.  

We initially envisioned Arise as the centerpiece of our June 2020 concert — to commemorate the centennial of the 19th Amendment, and to close our 25th anniversary season. When we learned about new possibilities for creating live ensemble music online, we approached Dr. Boquiren... and he has spent the last several months adapting the piece specifically for live-remote performance. During our June 10th livestream, you'll have the chance to hear him discuss this process and to pose your questions. We'll also fill you in on what it's been like for Cerddorion to rehearse in this new and very different way.

We will reach out to you closer to the concert date to provide details on how you can tune in. Please join us, as Cerddorion ARISES to sing for you again!

Dido and Aeneas

Cerddorion had performances scheduled for 2020 of Dido and Aeneas, with distinguished soloists and choreographed staging. Then Pandemic changed our plans. Of course, we are unable to perform in enclosed public spaces. Singing is very much part of our lives, and not singing together and for audiences takes that part out of our lives. What can we do? Well, we still sing, and as you can imagine, it’s difficult.

Because of the lag time of internet-transmitted sound (known as latency), it’s not possible to sing together. Despite that, we are doing it in rehearsal. We are not currently working on a virtual choir such as the one in this video, though we haven’t ruled it out. Instead, we meet in rehearsals, using cutting edge technology that aims to reduce latency to acceptable levels. In recent months, we have put in a lot of time and effort to using it, hoping to produce an artistic and beautiful sound. By the time we succeed, luck may make public gatherings possible once again. We still don’t know how Pandemic will play out, but there are trends that give hope.

In the meantime, please enjoy this recent recording of an interesting arrangement of one of the numbers from Dido and Aeneas. This is by Annie Lenox with London City Voices.