Park Slope Singers

As with many of the more excellent occurences in my life, it just kind of happened. I was going to work as usual one day, and there on the glass window at Dizzy's restaurant was an ad for the Park Slope Singers winter concert. I paused, noted that I had (of course) missed the performance by 2 days, saw they had a website, and continued onward in my morning commute. When I got to work, I checked out said website, and what did I find? Only what appeared to be exactly what I was looking for. A choral group in my neighborhood (and by that I mean quite literally 200 yards from my apartment) that meets once a week for two hours, does a variety of music from more classical to contemporary, and has a concert each "semester." Perrrrrrfect!
So I emailed Frank, the group's manager, and thereby began my adventures with the Park Slope Singers. And it is only slightly amusing to me that I went from the Penn Singers to the Park Slope Singers. Love it.
When I arrived at rehearsal, a few minutes early to meet people, as encouraged by Frank, I realized, not terribly surprisingly, that I was the youngest one. By saaaaay 15 years.
The group is about 50 members, more heavily women. Actually, most of the tenor section is women too, now that I think about it. And there is one guy who quite literally could be Sean Penn's brother. Dead lookalike. And then there's my newbie comrade Melanie, the closest Alto in age to me, at 28. But no joke, the mean age I would guess to be 55. Thats including me and Melanie in the average.

We meet in the basement of a church, and I'm pretty sure the heat in the building is turned off at the same time that we start, because most of us are wrapped in our coats and scarves by the end of rehearsal from the cold. The conductor Ronnie is new this semester and I gather there is a bit of "adjusting" to his style, though clearly I don't know the difference. Quite frankly I think he's phenomenal. And by that I mean an energetic Southerner with red hair whose background includes Julliard and who insists that we sing on a Doo or Dah, rather than the words, until we learn all the notes. LOVE it.

And the best part of this whole shindig, and the icing on what is already a rather yummy cake...

We get to perform in Carnegie Hall.

(!!!)

On my list of "things to accomplish in my life" that includes such modest accomplishments as graduating college (yes! check!), having children, and writing a book, performing in Carnegie hall is right up there. Now, I kind of always pictured a solo piano concert... buuuuut, this may be ok. :) So, it'll be us Slopers in one of those big 'ol choirs, right behind an orchestra, all in black, rockin out to Faure's Requiem. Saturday May 19th. Save the date.

So basically, I'm pretty pumped, feel very fortunate to have found them, and am truly excited to have an outlet for my performance bug. Because seriously, I have WAY too much energy bottled up right now that even joining the gym didn't quite settle.
And between this and joining the Park Slope YMCA, you'd actually think that I LIVE here and am invested in the, oh what's the word? Community.
Yes.