A “Thank You!”

Everyone has been collecting their thoughts, engaging in summer activities and having choir withdrawals since we arrived home nine days ago. What a whirlwind trip to wrap our heads around!

Thank you all, firstly, for your support in our traveling, performing and competing. It means a lot to have family and friends supporting the choir every step of the way. We hope that you all stay involved in the years to come!

Some exciting things are happening for choir members this summer and next year. Here’s what some of them are up to!

• Chris Barbee, 2014 graduate, received a US Student Fulbright grant to study choral conducting in Latvia. He is spending the summer preparing for his upcoming adventure!
• Rising senior Sharon Mays will be spending the summer in Michigan, working at Interlochen, an internationally acclaimed music camp
• 2014 graduates Bethany Orick and Katie Little will move to France in the fall. Bethany will be an au pair and Katie an English teacher. We’re excited for them!
• We have many making their way to graduate school. To name a few, Grant Frederick: Choral conducting at Baylor University, Matt Taylor: Choral conducting at Louisiana State University, Rebecca Rafla: Dental school at the University of Kentucky
• 2014 graduate Byron Turk and rising sophomore Evan Gunter will perform in “Les Miserables” with Red Mountain Theatre Company this summer
• 2014 graduate Emily Smith is moving to Texas on June 20th to become a missionary in Mexico, teaching music in an area she has invested in for years!
• 2014 graduate Cara Thomas is preparing to hike the Appalachian Trail in the fall
• Rising senior Chase Cunningham is interning at both an advertising agency and a newspaper in Louisville, Ky. this summer.

Dr. Copeland is busy planning, auditioning and reflecting this summer. We are so thankful for his leadership. The remaining singers for next year are looking forward to greeting fresh faces and gearing up for another year of singing!

Again, with heartfelt thanks, we are so grateful for friends and family who cheer us on along the way. We are, in turn, grateful that God gives us sweet gifts such as music!

 

 

Dr. Copeland’s Competition Thoughts

A note from our esteemed conductor about how we did in the two competitions…

“Friends, here is exactly what happened with the Samford A Cappella Choir in the two recent competitions. It has been difficult to find a quality internet connection to adequately communicate the news!

Ave Verum Competition, Baden, Austria: May 22-25, 2014

1. Samford wins 3rd prize from the first day of the competition and was selected to compete in the finals.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention in the original post that Samford also won “Best Interpretation of a Piece Written After 2000.” We aren’t sure what piece that was, actually.

In the finals, the University of Georgia won. We were told later that the difference in our scores was .8 – a very slim margin, to say the least. Georgia has an incredible program and is led by Dan Bara, a masterful musician and conductor. We were privileged to have come as close as we did.

Florilège Competition, Tours, France: May 30 – June 1, 2014

Here is the full Samford result of the Florilège competition. You can get the complete prize list here: http://www.florilegevocal.com/page.php?page_id=77

Samford received:
1. 2nd place tie with University of Utah in Category 1, the mixed choirs category (large choirs). The competition was very high in this category – one judge told me that it was full of “Gran Premio” caliber choirs. We tied for 2nd with Utah, and Utah won the entire competition.

2. Samford received the “Prix À Cœur Joir International” prize, an award given to a non-French speaking choir for our performance of “Yver, vous n’estes qu’un vilain” by Claude Debussy. (Ole Miss friends may recognize that we did this work with Dr. Jordan at Florilège in 1987)

A description from the competition website: PRIZE A COEUR JOIE INTERNATIONAL
This special prize, of €1 000, is offered by À Coeur Joie International – an international choral organisation. It is awarded to a non-French choir for the quality of its musical performance and of its pronunciation of a work written by any French composer after 1750.

In addition to those two fine awards, I was fortunate to be personally awarded with the “Prix du chef de chœur,” an award given by the jury for excellence in choral conducting.

A description from the competition website: CONDUCTOR’ s PRIZE
This prize, of €1000, will be offered and presented by The Friends of Arthur Oldham. The Jury will award this prize to a conductor for the quality of his or her conducting during the competition.

In this competition, Samford joined four other choirs in the finals of the competition. The University of Utah won. Afterwards, we were told that the margin was incredibly close – as close as you can get from a seven member jury.

Coming in second in two major choral competitions is both an honor and a frustration. We competed against incredible programs and we were “beaten” by much larger schools. The University of Utah has a student body of around 31,000 students and Georgia has around 34,000. Samford’s A Cappella Choir draws from 4,500 incredible students.

I don’t think most of us feel “beaten.” Our focus in these experiences was to use the “competition” as a medium for the “communication” of the many messages that were in our music. In the end, we are only competing against ourselves and our own standard of excellence.

I may have more time to expand this later – but for now – it is time to audition the Fall 2014 freshmen class!”

Vienna

Vienna has charmed us all with its plentiful coffee shops, beautiful cathedrals, bustling streets, quaint gardens and composer’s houses.

We’ve toured the Habsburg family’s summer and winter palaces, hung out at the fair riding ferris wheels and rides with great views of the city, visited Mozart’s museum, the Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of Applied Arts and spent some good time napping admist the hectic schedule!

Tonight we have our last concert of the year in the heart of Vienna. One of our favorite things, and a main reason why we exist, is to share music with people. We’ve had ample opportunity for that during this trip, and it’s exciting to do that one more time on this trip!

Tomorrow morning we fly to Paris and take a bus to Tours, France. Thus begins Florilege Vocal de Tours—a competition that we participated in two years ago. As a group, we have assessed our progress over the past few years and even since the Ave Verum competition last week. Rehearsals have been very productive and focused this week, so we are looking forward to taking the stage!

Gutenacht from all of us!

Baden: Day Two

Nine choirs performed at Casino Baden today. Yes, you read that right. We are performing at a casino, which is quite humorous.

Being the sixth choir to perform, we were able to relax, grab some lunch and listen to our competitors.

We were blown away with the diverse sounds coming from groups from Ukraine, Phillippines, Austria, our own USA and Hungary.

After rehearsing for an hour and talking through our plan of action, we took the stage confidently at 2p.m. and delivered a performance we were very pleased with.

We sang “Feeling Free” by Dunser, “Alleluja” by Karai, “Kyrie” by Praulins, “Sanctus” by Palestrina and “Nyon, Nyon” by Runestad. It was a compelling set and we are thankful to have shared it with a receptive audience.

We rested for a while and soon found out that we advanced to the final round of the competition!

Tonight, we performed at St. Stephen’s Church in the heart of Baden, where the famous Mozart premiered “Ave Verum Corpus.” We performed five songs and joined in with a large chorus to sing Mozart’s anthem.

In the morning we will sing two songs in the public square, followed by the final round. Keep your eyes peeled for the results tomorrow!

Baden: Day One

This morning started early with a 7 a.m. departure from Budapest to Baden, Austria.

We arrived at 11 a.m. and went straight to lunch where we were greeted by kind Ave Verum (ICC-AV) staff. After that, we rested for an hour or two, rehearsed and set off to gather with the competing choirs.

We paraded down the streets in lines of four singing “Viva la musica” in a round. The processional ended at the beautiful town square where the mayor of Baden gave a welcome speech.

Walking a little further, we gathered for the opening ceremony. Multiple Austrian choirs sang songs in each competing choir’s native tongue—English, Phillipino, Hungarian, Russian. It was incredible. The choir that sang in English performed a song about God: “Hallelujah for all You’ve done.” It was very stirring.

After standing for an hour in 90 degree weather wearing all black, we headed down the main street for a relaxing meal, accompanied by fruit flies and pizza with eggs on top. Baden is beautifully unique.

The competition board provided a concert by an outstanding a cappella group at 8 p.m. followed by a wow-ing firework show.

It’s safe to say this was a packed day! Looking forward to listening to some choirs and performing twice tomorrow! We sing at 2 p.m.!

Goodnight, Baden!

Budapest!

We had an awesome day in Budapest! Our bus took us on a three-hour tour of the city on which we saw Heroes Square, Parliament, sang “Reggel” around the Garden of Philosophy and many other attractions and beautiful viewpoints. We sang for mass and performed a concert at the famous St. Matthias Church this evening, followed by an excellent meal with live music!

We performed the famous “Esti Dal” by Hungarian composer Kodaly for our audience tonight. It was a special connecting moment for all involved, as it is a sort of Hungarian hymn. The people know it by heart. We had some sweet conversations afterward and it was a blessing to hear that the music and our choir had touched people.

Tomorrow we wake up early to travel to Baden, Austria to begin the Ave Verum competition! The opening ceremony is tomorrow night with the actual singing beginning Friday morning.

Day one was a success, and luggage for our standby flyers just arrived!

Tour Schedule

Here’s our tour schedule for those who are interested!

Weds, 5/21:
Guided tour of Budapest. Mass participation followed by Concert at St. Matthias Church.

Thurs, 5/22:
Depart for Baden, Austria. Opening ceremony of Ave Verum competition.

Fri, 5/23:
Part A of Ave Verum competition.

Sat, 5/24:
Part B of Ave Verum competition. Winners announced at night.

Sun, 5/25:
Sing at a local church. Choir excursion in the afternoon.

Mon, 5/26:
Depart for Vienna. Guided tour of the city.

Tues, 5/27:
Masterclass with director of Vienna Boys Choir. Guided tour of Schonbrunn Palace.

Weds, 5/28:
Full day at leisure in Vienna. Sing at Peterskirche.

Thurs, 5/29:
Morning at leisure at Vienna. Depart for Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris and drive to Tours.

Fri, 5/30 – Sun, 6/1:
Florilege Vocal de Tours competition in Tours, France.

Mon, 6/2:
Fly to Atlanta, drive back to Samford!

Update: 5 Days!

The past few weeks have been a lot of work, and we are ramping up for the next two and a half weeks!

We’ve been doing a 10-day countdown on social media, and we’d love you to join. http://www.facebook.com/samfordacappella and @SU_ACappella are great places for you to join us. We’ll be posting updates every day on the trip, including pictures and competition happenings.

The pictures below are a few from this week–chamber rehearsals, countdowns, get-togethers. We’re so excited to travel as a big family, to meet other choirs, perform our best in competition, sight-see and share our music in Hungary, Austria and France!

 

Choir Collaboration

We had the honor of hosting LSU’s A Cappella Choir on Tuesday! They joined us in Brock Recital Hall during our rehearsal time. We sang a few pieces for them, and they did the same for us.

We love listening to new sounds and different choirs, and so enjoyed this choir exchange! We learned some valuable information and insights. Thank you, LSU!

King’s Singers Masterclass

We had the joyous privilege of hosting the King’s Singers for a masterclass and concert yesterday. They worked with us on vowel formations and presentation primarily. We all agree that their professionalism is apparent, their skill is unmatched and their wit is hilarious.

Their concert was also out of this world. It wasn’t Samford-specific, so people from all over Birmingham were in attendance for the sold-out concert held in Brock Recital Hall. It was such an insightful few hours for us all.

We’re happy to share these pictures with you!