April to June 2021: Mass No. 2 in G Major by Franz Schubert

Because of the ongoing Covid restrictions, the City Chorus continued to sing virtually together via Zoom: our Late Spring Cycle featured the Romantic Era gem Mass No. 2 in G Major by Franz Schubert, with its alluring lyric melodies, lush harmonies and easily accessible solos for sopranos, tenors and basses. We started on April 28 for 6 weeks of online learning and rehearsals on Wednesday evenings, then a final “concert” sing through on June 9. Cost was $35 for the 7 weeks, but singers could choose their own amount. We enjoyed a similar format to our most recent virtual experience of Haydn’s Creation, with expert coaching by our beloved chorus director Larry Marietta and esteemed accompanist John Walko. Curious how it worked? Find further details on our 2021 Virtual Choruses page.

January to March 2021: The Creation by Franz Joseph Haydn

Our first 2021 virtual chorus experience featured choruses and solos from The Creation by Franz Joseph Haydn, a masterpiece of the choral literature inspired in large part by Handel's Messiah. There were opportunities to learn the solos from The Creation on two extra Saturdays. After 10 weeks of diligent practice at home and online, we had our final “concert” sing through on March 24, conducted with inimitable style by Larry and featuring a special digital remastering of the overture by John.

December 2020: our virtual Sing-Along Messiah (a resounding success!)

At the end of 2020 we held our first Sing-Along Messiah via Zoom: Sunday December 6 at 3 pm, led by Larry with help from our sound engineers John and Rachel. We couldn’t hear each other sing, but we saw each other—123 of us from 3 countries and 11 states—so happy to be together in one moment singing this joyous music of the season. We are so glad we were able to offer it: we received heartfelt thanks from so many singers who were worried they would have no Sing-Along Messiah at all this year; at the end they felt that finally the holidays had truly begun.

While we’ve since learned of other Sing-Alongs, unique to our early season Sing-Along was the chance to preview and refresh our memory of the Messiah, guided by online learning resources and direct coaching from Larry, over 3+ weeks of rehearsals.

August to November 2020: Gloria by Antonio Vivaldi

Current SFCC members, SFCC alumni from far and wide, and singers from nearby choruses joined Larry and John on Zoom to learn Vivaldi’s Gloria through online live rehearsals and then weekly “homework” via part-guided videos with scrolling scores. Then, at our virtual “concert” on November 4, we sang the complete piece straight through, each singer (out of 47 of us) individually blending our voice with a high-quality all-parts audio recording of full chorus, soloists and orchestra. We enjoyed a lively social time afterwards. Dressing up for it was part of the fun. Just below is our own after-the-fact audio recording of the second movement, “Et in Terra Pax”, in which we were finally—due to the technical artistry of board member Clara Ko—able to combine our voices and remember our time together.

How does this work?

In rehearsal we had live warmups and coaching from our choral director Larry Marietta and accompanist John Walko. Together they helped us with expression, phrasing and any tricky parts, for example. Then we sang through the selected chorus(es) for that evening in parallel—i.e. seeing but not hearing each other sing—matching our individual voice to a high-quality audio track. Unfortunately at no point did we actually sing together, and that's the way it needed to be until everyone's voices can be synced up in real time on Zoom.

• For midweek practice, on our website we provided, after registration for the Zoom link and Learning Resources password:

  • part-specific videos with scrolling scores where one part is highlighted and the others are backgrounded. It was a lot more satisfying than a midi file, if you have used that before.

  • the same audio tracks mentioned above, recorded by a quartet of real singers and orchestra. Singing along with just a quartet, it is relatively easy to find your part, as compared with singing along with a chorus on YouTube. So, practicing at home and rehearsing each Wednesday we learned the right notes and getting a true feel for the music.

• For our virtual "concert", again we sang in parallel, individually at home, just seeing all the participants, but by that time we knew our parts and could sing through every chorus in order. It's interesting however: after a few pages, it seemed as if we were singing together, just by singing along with a the quartet of prerecorded professional singers while seeing each other

Our First Virtual Chorus Video

During shelter-in-place, we found new ways to sing together and just finished a recording project of Duruflé’s Ubi Caritas, with 16 singers singing 45 tracks, conducted by Larry Marietta.