Tag: ensemble

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Today’s thrilling moment

This is the song we performed before this morning’s (very inspiring) Spiritual Renewal Class. It’s one of my (many) favorite songs by Swamiji!

(Of course, our ensemble arrangement is a lot simpler than this version from Ramesha’s album — The Inner Temple!)

Today’s thrilling moment came when we invited the audience to join us on the final chorus.

What an amazing experience it is to be one of 300 or so people singing the words, “Dear God, my God, I am Thine for eternity! Dear God, my God, I am Thine eternally!”

And meaning every word.

Here are the complete lyrics:

I WILL ALWAYS THINK OF THEE

Every morning when I greet the sun,
When I move forth through crowded ways,
In my heart, Lord, ever so silently,
I will always think of Thee!

When I laugh, O, and when I cry with pain,
When my best friends misunderstand.
In my heart, Lord, ever so silently,
I will always think of Thee!

    Chorus:
    Dear God, my God, I am Thine for eternity!
    Dear God, my God, I am Thine eternally!

    Though my path lead me over desert sands
    Though it take me through bitter storms,
    In my heart, Lord, ever so silently,
    I will always think of Thee!

    When I’m working and when in earned repose,
    Let come vict’ry or low defeat,
    In my heart, Lord, ever so silently,
    I will always think of Thee!

      Chorus:
      Dear God, my God, I am Thine for eternity!
      Dear God, my God, I am Thine eternally!

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      THIS happened at tonight’s rehearsal

      During both Village Choir and Ensemble rehearsals tonight there were moments that absolutely captured the meaning of this quote.

      The wonderful thing is that the “first breath” happens with each song…and each time you restart a song that you’re working on.

      So, we get to tune in again and again to that focus, intention, and emotion. We get to feel, over and over again, our unified energies as we create an ever-new expression of our beautiful music.

      What joy.

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      From Sunday music to Don McLean

      Our ensemble had a really fun rehearsal before Sunday service yesterday. You know everyone’s enjoying themselves when the rehearsal ends but instead of leaving the dais they stand around chatting.

      I finally had to remind the singers that the Sunday service set-up crew was patiently waiting to prepare for the purification ceremony. As I did so, I found myself vaguely remembering some song lyrics about a marching band refusing to yield the field.

      I realized the words were from the song, “American Pie” (“Cause the players tried to take the field, The marching band refused to yield”), but when I mentioned it to a few friends (explaining the correlation of the ensemble refusing to yield the dais to the service team) none of them remembered it.

      So, of course, I had to go home and look up the lyrics, and in the course of doing so I tuned into the fact that it’s been over fifty years since “American Pie” became a hit.

      I also learned that Don McLean sold the original manuscript of the song lyrics for $1.2 million back in 2015. Amazing!

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      A joyful ovation

      This isn’t the greatest pic (although I’m grateful to our friend, Neha, for capturing a few shots on my cell phone), but hopefully it conveys some portion of the joy that filled the room at the end of our concert tonight.

      Hats off to choir, ensemble, accompanists, and tech crew for a job (extremely) well done!

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      A blast of Christmas joy!

      If you’re ready for a blast of Christmas joy, please consider joining us for our annual Christmas Concert, THIS Saturday, December 16 at 5:30pm (PST) in the Temple of Light at Ananda Village.  

      This year’s concert feels special on several levels. To start with, it’s the first time since 2019 that the full Ananda Village Choir gets to sing on the Christmas Concert.

      Secondly, early this year we made the decision to experiment with having a smaller ensemble of dedicated singers who were able and willing to put in the time and effort to take their singing to another level. I believe that outpouring of additional energy is going to bear beautiful fruit in this concert.

      Finally, it feels special…just because! I can’t even explain the feeling; maybe the stars are somehow aligned. Who knows? It just feels really, really good.

      We start early (5:30pm PST) in order to make the concert accessible to families with small children; that’s also the reason the program only lasts about an hour.

      And if you live too far away to join us in person, watch the concert LIVE using this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDCI8OPwO0g (or you can just click on the video above).

      I hope you can join us in celebrating the love of Christ and the joy of this Holy Season.

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      More and more satisfying

      That’s how I’m feeling about our ensemble rehearsals!

      We’re listening more to one another. We’re maintaining the energy and holding our pitch. We’re consistently conveying the meaning of the lyrics. We’re going deeper into the consciousness of every song.

      Sometimes it feels like hard work, but at the same time, we’re having so much FUN!

      This is one of the moments that I really, really love my job.

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      Singing about joy with joy

      There was lots of joy in the Temple of Light this morning as we sang “There’s Joy in the Heavens.”

      I was particularly gratified to hear (and feel) how “tight” the ensemble is sounding. My favorite thing is being able to completely relax and simply enjoy singing with the group…and that most definitely happened today.