Gathering Day
Jun. 3rd, 2006 09:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lordshipmayhemDefinition of Website:
1. Subset of the human ego native exclusively to the Internet.
2. The inexorable result of marketers managing programmers.
3. Archaic form of Blogs, from the days when only skilled developers could use
valuable bandwidth to rank their favorite Star Trek episodes.
On Thursday night, Wilf treated me to an evening with the Toronto Choristers, a 107-member choir made up largely of retired Greater Toronto Area music teachers from the various Public Boards of Education. The choir consisted of 41 supranos, 40 altos, 9 tenors and 17 basses. The music ranged from religious (Laudate Pueri) to musicals (a medley of songs from the musical Here's Hoagy) and even Take Me Out To The Ball Game.
Their special guest artist was a Russian lady named Iraida Erokhina, a domra artist. What, you ask, is a domra? My first reaction when I saw the instrument was that it looked like a balalaika - small and guitar-like. It turns out the balalaika is a descendant of the domra, except the domra has
only three strings. And what she could do with those three strings!! She played Ave Maria, a traditional Hungarian czardas, the Cuban folk song La Paloma (I recognized it from a movie from back in the 1950's), and The Flight of the Bumblebee. She's got quite a few awards, and is a member of the Toronto Mandalin Orchestra and the Shevchenko Choir.
The choir itself then tackled a Russian medley with her, Dark Eyes, Moscow Nights and Kalinka. Anyone who has seen the fanservice-friendly anime Labyrinth of Flames will recognize Kalinka from the closing credits.
1. Subset of the human ego native exclusively to the Internet.
2. The inexorable result of marketers managing programmers.
3. Archaic form of Blogs, from the days when only skilled developers could use
valuable bandwidth to rank their favorite Star Trek episodes.
On Thursday night, Wilf treated me to an evening with the Toronto Choristers, a 107-member choir made up largely of retired Greater Toronto Area music teachers from the various Public Boards of Education. The choir consisted of 41 supranos, 40 altos, 9 tenors and 17 basses. The music ranged from religious (Laudate Pueri) to musicals (a medley of songs from the musical Here's Hoagy) and even Take Me Out To The Ball Game.
Their special guest artist was a Russian lady named Iraida Erokhina, a domra artist. What, you ask, is a domra? My first reaction when I saw the instrument was that it looked like a balalaika - small and guitar-like. It turns out the balalaika is a descendant of the domra, except the domra has
only three strings. And what she could do with those three strings!! She played Ave Maria, a traditional Hungarian czardas, the Cuban folk song La Paloma (I recognized it from a movie from back in the 1950's), and The Flight of the Bumblebee. She's got quite a few awards, and is a member of the Toronto Mandalin Orchestra and the Shevchenko Choir.
The choir itself then tackled a Russian medley with her, Dark Eyes, Moscow Nights and Kalinka. Anyone who has seen the fanservice-friendly anime Labyrinth of Flames will recognize Kalinka from the closing credits.