A trio of new songs tonight to wrap our minds (and mouths) around! First, I must thank St Laurence's Church for being such wonderful hosts, as always. We're very grateful here at KTB Music Theatre Chorus to have such a great alternate venue so we don't have to miss out on our regular giggle-fest. And the singing! Obviously the singing.
(Writer studiously avoids making metaphorical eye contact with KTB... still hears the non-metaphorical exasperation from miles away...)
While the wind howled outside, we got the chorus party started with some "manic Germanic" (honestly, that's in the music directions) energy from "Haus of Holbein" (Six). It's fun, it's got some great lines, we have a fantastic soloist, and it immediately set off a wave of Millennial clubbing moves like we're all sleeper agents just waiting for a certain beat.
Next up, we learned that a song comprised largely of two syllables can absolutely cause even a seasoned musical brain to grind to a halt. This was our very first introduction to "Stampede" from The Lion King's phenomenal stage show, and we worked hard to get ourselves familiar with the shape of it. This is going to have an incredible impact when we pull it together... and if we think too hard about the in-show context of the piece, we will cry.
We were certainly putting in "heaps of ef-fort" with all of our songs tonight, so of course we tackled "School Song" from Matilda with all the force of the boisterous big kids we are. Katy says we're all miracles.
Finally, before we went back out into the biting cold and wild wind, we did need to mellow out a bit, and so we note- and rhythm-bashed "Singing in the Rain" right through to the end of the song, and the end of the evening.
We're all feeling excited about the concert set list already... especially given the sneaky peek Katy let us have this evening (including what's coming up... actual goosebumps). This writer can't wait to be able to say more, but until then, dear reader, I'm hitting Send on this blog post.
Written by Aeryn Isherwood