And so begins the tale of that crazy dysfunctional group that is also known as the St. Joseph's 8 & 12 o'clock choir. We meet Wednesday nights at 7:00 clock and engage in an evening of music and mayhem. The evening usually begins with our sadistic...oops! I mean wonderful, all-knowing choir director taking the singers through warmups while the instrumentalists sit back and laugh. Then after the warmups are through, we go through the hymns for the week. Sometimes after we're through with that, we get to practice something special...a more challenging song to be sung as an anthem. Sundays, we get to church about half an hour early and set up the choir area with the mikes and chairs and stands. Then we warm up by running through the Responsorial Psalm. After that, we'll run through some of the hymns just to make sure we've got it down. Then, the Mass begins and we do our job. We sing or play to accompany the liturgy and involve the congregation in the Mass.
Well, it's time to meet some of the choir members. I'm only doing the instrumentalists right now, mainly because there's so many singers and I don't know them all too well. But eventually, I hope to at least mention everyone's names in here.
Frank is our tyrannical, sadistic choir director. (Sorry Phrankie, I tell it like it is! j/k!) Actually, we couldn't possibly have a better choir director than Frank. Besides being an excellent piano player, Frank is very good at picking tunes for the choir to sing. He picks a variety of styles and difficulties for us to work at. He really works hard at developing the choir musically. He is also very good at getting transposed parts out for all the instrumentalists. Just in case we never told you, thank you Frank, for everything you've done for us.
Sarah is our flute player. She is really really good at it. She's also a really sweet person who is great to know. (She also hears voices, but we don't like to talk about that) Sarah lives all the way out in St. Augustine, but still manages to come out to practice every Wednesday night and to 8:00 and 12:00 Masses on Sundays. Sarah is in Youth Orchestra with me and we usually carpool to practices after church. She'll graduate this spring and plans to go to FCCJ and then transfer to Florida State.
Here at St. Joe's, we are privileged to have three saxophone players. And not only that, but they all can play AND they have different types of saxophones. Paul is our soprano sax player, Jeff is our tenor sax player, and Jim is our alto sax player. All three of them are very talented and add a lot to the ensemble.
Then we have our trumpets. Incredible? Or simply incredibly annoying? Take your pick. But seriously, the trumpets add a lot to our instrumental sound. Paul (not to be confused with Paul the sax) and Jessica are really talented. Then there's Russ. Besides playing trumpet, he plays banjo and mandolin. And the really sick part is: he's great at all of them. Of course, since he's my uncle I kind of have to be nice, but I'm truly not lying. He can improv just about anything and you will hardly ever hear him mess up.
Bernie is our drummer. Bernie's cool. He rocks on his set. And he seems to have a sense of whats appropriate for what song. At the practices he tapes the songs so he can practice them at home...Actually it's quite amusing to say stuff in his little recorder...
Then there's me. Becky. I play the French horn...I am the greatest thing to ever happen to the choir...oops I mean I am unworthy scum who is so graciously allowed to join this fine group of individuals, no that's not what I mean either. Actually I don't know what I mean.
We also have a few guitar players who add a lot to the music. They are Leo, Wylie, and Bill. I hope I didn't leave anyone out there. They're pretty good though. And there's also Bob, who does sound. He's the one who makes sure all the mikes are working, and everyone is being heard.
April 11 was the dedication of our new church (seen above) It was a beautiful service. The bishop came and blessed everything (the walls, the altar, the crosses...) And, of course, the choir sang. We had a combined choir, that is, all the groups at St. Joe's came together. And we also had another horn player came in to help me out. We played some really great music. Frank wrote a really cool intro for City of God, and we played the Gloria from the Mass for Johm Carroll, the Alleluia from the Mass of Celebration, For the Beauty of the Earth, All are Welcome, and more, too, but I can't remember them. But those were some of the better ones. Now we have a week off. My goodness whatever shall we do with the extra time??? :-)