Art in Germany, or My Experience with Choir and Theater

Abstract

Ijoined the "Academic Choir" at the Friederich-Alexander University, ErlangenNurnberg because I enjoy choir and have had many years ofprevious choir experience. Because ofmy previous musical knowledge I was able to participate in this choir and follow along, even thoughthelanguage ofthechoirwasGerman. Iattendedweeklyrehearsalsforaperiod ofthree months and participated in two concerts. In a memorial concert for "Totensonntag" (literally "Dead Sunday," comparable with our "Memorial Day" holiday) we sang a collection of holy choir music from the German composer Josef Rheinberger, with excerpts both in German and in Latin. The second concert was an Advent/Christmas concert, where we sang Benjamin Britten's A Ceremony of Carols in English. I was asked to have a solo in that concert. I continued attending rehearsals after Christmas while we sang through Mendelssohn's Lobgesang ("song of praise"), but unfortunately I was not able to attend the performance ofthis piece. For additional research on the topic of music in Germany I utilized websites which gave me more information on the composer Josef Rheinberger and the meanings of German music-theory expressions.