28-April-99 Project Manna Concert

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I'm getting used to how quickly a concert always gets over when the time finally comes. You'll go over and over a song in weeks of rehearsals, and then when you perform it once it flies past. Come to think of it, that's one of the great things about the gospel pieces -- they never stop. You'll get to the end, and the director will make some circular motions and you do the last part over again, and maybe over again; stop and accept some applause, and the accompanist will start the last verse again and you get to sing it again, and repeat the last part a couple more times.

The room (it's the main sanctuary at the synagogue, with a big elliptical domed ceiling, like Noah's Ark upside down) was almost sold out. To keep as much space as possible available for the audience, the choirs mostly stayed on stage as much. There was a youth choir that stayed in seats on the top row of risers for the first half of the concert. When it was the youth choir's turn to sing, the gospel choirs (who had been standing lower on the risers for an unreasonably long time during speeches after they sang) switched places with them. The most fun part of the evening for me was something you could only see from the extreme edge of the hall where I was sitting -- the gospel singers in the back snapping their fingers and swaying along with the kids who were doing a particularly funky version of “Hava Nagila.”

Here's the whole program:

The combined choirs
Total Praise, R. Smallwood
I Hear a Voice A'Prayin', Houston Bright

Adult choirs of Beth El Congregation, Temple Emanuel, Temple Emeth, and Temple Ohabei Shalom
Yimloch from Sacred Service, Block
Tov L'hodot (psalm 92), Ben Steinberg
Hob Ikh Mir an Altn Daym, Yiddish, arr. Osborne
Hallelujah (psalm 150) Lewandowski

Adult choir of Mass. Ave Baptist Church and Boston Community Choir
Lo V'chayil, Netsky/Slaughter
Lean On Me, Kirk Franklin
Hold On, arr. Roger Troutman
Glory To Glory, Fred Hammond

(trio and piano)
Shalom Rav

Kol Rinah, the Jewish Youth Chorus of Greater Boston
Al Kol Eileh, Shemer, arr. Jacobson
Hava Nagila, Nathanson, arr Faktori/Sperber

Combined Jewish choirs
Samachti B'omrim Li (psalm 122), Osborne
Ya Ribon, R. Solomon

Combined choirs
Amazing Grace, John Newton
Yism'chu, R. Solomon
(encore) Psalm 27

Say! The concert's going to be available on audio tape at $10 per tape plus $3.50 shipping. Proceeds benefit the food program at the Mass Ave. Baptist Church. Let me know.