Fueling Mozart

Rochester’s music scene looms large, diverse, active, exciting, something for everyone.  The month of July offers Tuesday night Eastman Summer Sing-at Kilbourn Hall.  With full 4-voice scores in hand, the singers rehearse fabulous Cantatas,  masses, Requiems; all of the favorites for large choir and at the hands of fabulous Eastman school faculty to conduct and students and local singers to perform solo parts.

The first offering of the season was two-fold. Mozart’s Vesperae solennes de confessore and Coronation Mass dating from 1779 and 1780.  The music is sophisticated, rhythmic, fast paced, melding from solo to chorus swinging back to solo and chorus again sometimes, without even an eighth-note’s break in between.  It offers a sight-reader’s fantasy or folly, depending on your prowess.

The works display Mozart’s early “mastery” of all of the established forms of church music stemming from his century; traditional Psalms and Magnificats of the Vespers service and familiar Kyrie, Gloria, Credo and more of the Catholic Mass.

Within the two hour time frame, Maestro/Master conductor William Weinert and pianist Paul Frolick (an amazing one-man piano-orchestra) led us through the rehearsal and “performance” of both pieces.

Then came a decision time; My good friend in the tenor section invited me to join him after the sing-along for something a little different.  The heavy rock group FUEL will be playing tonight at the water Street Performance Hall as part of their Born Again tour 2010.  Indeed I have heard of FUEL, having teenagers in my life.  He wanted company to go and hear his nephew who happens to be the lead singer for the group.  

A motto I savor; “You only live once,”

so live it up, try it all.

I have done my share of trying it all; hanging by cables over deep gorges, climbing impossible slip-rock trails, doing outward-bound style tricks flying through the air into trusted colleagues arms and on and on.  The idea is to collect adventures, savor life and remain grateful for good health.  Of course I would join him for the rock concert and invite my husband Paul as well, who joined us at Kilbourn to hear the Coronation Mass and then move on to the rock hall.

It was loud but not piercing, the words were indecipherable, but then again I had just sung in Latin, struggling toward proper pronunciation and not understanding those words as well.  The guitar and bass players danced all over the stage throwing their long hair with thrusts of their young and strong neck muscles, the drummer relentlessly hammered on the drums and the singer/nephew strained vocal cords with eyes closed and enthusiasm eking out of every pour.

So what if we were the oldest folks there by decades, so what if we received strange looks.  We stood and bounced to the beat for the 20 minutes that we stayed to listen.  The young people sat (still) at tables with their beer or stood down front in the Mosh pit ;

Moshing or slamming refers to the activity in which audience members at live music performances aggressively push and/or slam into each other. Moshing is frequently accompanied by stage diving, crowd surfing, mic swinging, instrument smashing, and headbanging. ...

cheering FUEL on. 

A photo of FUEL from the web