On Sunday morning, singers checked in at Alice Tully Hall at the Lincoln Center where they were pretty much stationed for the entire day. For those who are not familiar with the Lincoln Center, it is a beautiful campus of performance halls that is at the heart of the performing arts scene in New York and it is also home to the New York City Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera and next to The Juilliard School.
Each choir had its own call time for morning rehearsal on the stage of the theater at Alice Tully Hall. Students entered through a stage door and had to check in with a security guard, who had a list of all our singers’ names as well as the conductors and anyone else in our entourage who needed to be backstage. Backstage, there were beautiful dressing rooms for each choir director, each alumni soloist: Mari Stoner, Nickoli Strommer, and Roosevelt Credit, and a larger one for the choirs. The dressing rooms were very nice – each had a private bathroom and shower. There was also a small “green room” with comfortable seating. While individual choirs were rehearsing on the stage, Nicola Zielke and Elizabeth Atchley accompanied the guest soloists on brief warm up/rehearsals in the hall’s practice rooms. Singers had a little bit of down time when their particular choir was not rehearsing on stage, and that time was spent getting food or coffee, watching the other choir rehearsal or lounging in the choir dressing room or backstage hallways.
After lunch, the choirs had a rehearsal of the Dona Nobis Pacem for the first time with the full orchestra and soloists, followed by a full run-through with lights and the video presentation. The orchestra was top notch. It was comprised of professional musicians-for-hire in New York – many who do this type of gig in addition to regular positions with fine orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic. They were impressive.
Following the full run-through there was little time to do anything else except perhaps get a snack and dress for the performance. It was pretty close to concert time.