Singing at St Mary's

I'm a member of the St Mary of the Angels choir, which is great for my general confidence with singing - performing in public at Mass every week is fantastic for learning to deal with nerves! The choir does lots of Renaissance polyphony, as well as plainchant and various other styles of liturgical music. I've been singing with them for ten years now, and my singing has improved in every respect since I started. Of course, my lessons with the choir director, Robert, have had a lot to do with that.

This Easter my friend Olivia and I sang a Monteverdi duet for two sopranos with two violins accompanying, plus organ and Robert's viola da gamba for the continuo part. Monteverdi is one of my absolute favourite composers, so this was a real treat for me. I've also been learning a solo from Handel's Messiah, which I sang after Mass, once the choir had had our annual Easter treat of singing the Hallelujah Chorus!

My family was in town briefly for a get-together near Wellington, and Dad recorded some of the music. Because we were performing at Mass rather than at a concert, there was a fair amount of background noise (from babies during the duet, and conversations during my after-Mass solo). It's still great to be able to hear how we did. Evidently I need to learn to project my consonants more clearly in such a resonant building. ;)

Our duet (with bonus baby accompaniment):

And my Handel solo is here.