From Zach
In my two years here at NEC, I’ve had my fair share of life changing experiences. This institution is filled with students who all intend to be the apex of their field, and do everything in their power to achieve as much as they physically can. It’s an incredibly inspiring environment, filled with people who let the excellence of their peers push them up instead of pulling them down. And from what I have seen, no where is this more obvious than the Chamber Singers.
As a singer, there is an associated stigma that follows you where you go. We allegedly have a penchant for the overly dramatic, a perceived lack of musicianship, or a short attention span. People think falsely that we’re ditzy and dumb, all glitter and no substance, and that we glide through life with false emotions and false faces to keep ourselves right with the right people and wrong with the wrong ones. It’s a shadow that follows the word “singer,” a smudge that brings us all down a bit. But if you were to sit into a rehearsal with the chamber singers, you’d see in a heartbeat that smudges and stigmas have no place with us.
Every singer we have is incredibly intelligent, beautifully genuine, and sublimely in tune (musically, mentally and emotionally) with everyone else. On our worse days, we’re better than any other musical group I’ve ever been in, and on our best, there’s magic, which is something that defies stigmatism. That magic is especially prominent with the repertoire we’re dealing with now. It’s a range between Brahms and Ligeti, if that helps your expectations at all, and it’s some of the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard.
Of course, with Erica Washburn at the helm, how couldn’t it be? I have worked with Erica for six years now, and she is one of the most inspiring and talented musicians I’ve ever worked with. She took a group of singers and made a choir, filled with enthusiasm and a desire to share our voices. And I think that’s pretty extraordinary. And cool.
We’ve been working for months now, tackling this music and shaping it. I’ve gotten to know my choirmates even better, and some of them have become like family to me. Its gotten to the point where we just walk around Boston singing Ligeti and Frobisher Bay in harmony. We get some weird looks, but thats the price for music that bonds you so tightly to people that you want to carry it out of the rehearsal with you and onto the streets.
We’re going on tour soon. Beautiful music, sung by fantastic musicians, as interpreted and led by a conductor extraordinare. It’s gonna be a good time. You should come.
