I fancy myself a decent singer, having always been one of the better tenors in my parish choir. Coming to St. Vladimir’s found me working with other singers some of whom are better than I am and some of whom have never sang before. I’m probably the #3 tenor here presently, which is a bit of blow to the old ego, but I’m thankful to have peers who care about producing a beautiful sound as much as I do and from whom I have learned much and will continue to learn.
The director of music asked me to be one of a handful of student conductors for this semester, which is a new role for me. I’ve directed once or twice before when in a situation visiting a smaller parish whose only choir director was out of town for a wedding. We got through the liturgy without too many missteps by sticking to simple settings of hymns all in a major key, but I’m looking forward to learning how to do the job properly. With COVID restrictions, we can only have a quartet of singers at each service, so the plan is to have five student quartets that can alternate between daily Matins and Vespers and weekend Great Vespers and Divine Liturgy.
This semester in our Liturgical Skills class, we’ll also work on memorizing the soprano part for the Obikhod eight tones. I already have the tenor part memorized, so it will be nice to be able to sing the melody on command when needed.