Advertisement Although I hate — I repeat, hate — auditions, it was well worth my inhibitions and anxiety.
I have spent the last three months surrounded by a group of incredible singers. Every day I rehearse with the UW-L Choral Union, I realize more and more the talent in this group and how lucky I am to be a part of it.
Let me just get this plug over with now: We have a concert Sunday, so if you want to hear it for yourself, you definitely should come.
Hearing a musical group is almost as great as being part of one. I think any time someone has the opportunity to join a musical group, they should do it. At the very least, it’s a good mental exercise to read notes and sing — it uses parts of the brain you don’t normally encounter throughout a busy work day.
Beyond that, music has this amazing power to take your mind off daily worries and, when it’s really good, even take you to other places.
Who can’t think of a song that they loved from their youth, that every time they hear it, they go back to that place?
For me, I all too often find myself in the international music section of Barnes & Noble with a pair of headphones on and probably looking like I’m having too much fun to be in a bookstore. That’s because just hearing some of those songs takes me back to a time I spent salsa dancing in Mexico or listening to the radio in my host family’s house in Spain.
There are even more powerful things music can do — that involves being part of a choir. In high school, our choir sang in a lot of competitions. As you can imagine, to practice for those competitions, we sang those songs over and over again. So, there is really no way I could ever forget them, even if I didn’t like them. But the truth is, I loved all of them. In one Russian song, “Blagoslovi, dushe moya, Ghospoda” we had to be very quiet but stay very in tune. When we became louder, we all moved together. We did it so well, it was like the whole choir was taking a breath and singing the verse as one, and crescendoing and decrescendoing as one. Although no individual stood out, the harmony was all around me.
It was enough to send chills down down my spine every time we came to those phrases. The same thing happens today when I rehearse with the choral union. We have many musical parts, doing many different things, but somehow it all comes together to be nothing less than magical.
That is the power of music.
The Choral Union and the La Crosse Chamber Choral will sing “Stabat Mater” at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Viterbo University Fine Arts Center. Tickets are $12 for adults and $8 for students.
KJ Lang can be reached at (608) 791-8226 or klang@lacrossetribune.com.
