Anyone else shared your Libera songs to others?

[TEB]

Oh yeah! That's your 'Nuttier-than-squirrel-poo' friend, yes? How is 'Louise'? (no idea why 'Louise,' she just sounds like a Louise...no insult to anyone out there actually named Louise intended )

"Louise" is doing ok though still a little out is space with her religious beliefs. She recently told me, during my viral infection/bronchitis that I was in trouble with God because I stayed home from church while I was sick. When I told her that God doesn't keep attendence records, well, she looked at me like I was crazy. HMMM

I think she need's to read the Bible more. It's not the going to church that makes you/them a Christian, it's something else entirely. Church is simply where you go to fellowship with other believers and to learn more about God/Jesus/The Holy Ghost. It's all laid out in scripture (maybe we should find it and you could point it out to her and back it up by showing it to her in the Bible).

That thought has occured to me but I wonder if it would be worth the fallout afterwards. She is not the kind of person who takes being told she is wrong all that well.
She is semi-nuts. Well in my opinion anyways.
Like I said, I made her a Libera sampler cd. As soon as she heard the Latin she decided she didn't like it. Then she heard the lyrics for I Am The Day. "I am the darkness, soon to be light". As far as she is concerned, that is a reference to Satan even though I pointed out to her that RP is a Christian and most all of his original music is Christian themed. Day is about Jesus, not Satan. But she can't see that. She would have been right at home during the Salem witch trials.

[TEB]

, I did get one reaction which was rather amusing:

"Turn that off...Those are BOYS?!?!?!?....No way, there has to be a girl in there somewhere!!!...There isn't??" Then he said something that kinda hurt, but I didn't take it to heart:
"They are freaks. That is just not normal, no boy should ever sing that high, that's just weird."

Well, I imagine this same person would be ok if they were some sports team beating the daylights out of themselves and others. Too many people can't get it through their heads that music is just as much hard work as sports. More actually. I was a performer for a very long time. I heard more than a few times that I should put that energy into sports.

I remember hearing almost every Sunday in church, praises sung about a wrestler in my high school class but there was never any mention of all the different musical groups I was in. Not even when I made Dristict Band, County Band, County Orchestra and so on.
Oh well. It was a very long time ago.

[William]

Yeah, I don't know where that mentality comes from. Nowadays if people threaten to cut arts programs in the schools there will be a concern, but God forbid you should even mention anything about cutting funds to sports programs! I think it is a reflection on our competitive nature as human beings.

[kjackson83]

Yeah, I don't know where that mentality comes from. Nowadays if people threaten to cut arts programs in the schools there will be a concern, but God forbid you should even mention anything about cutting funds to sports programs! I think it is a reflection on our competitive nature as human beings.

We got into a spirited discussion over that on another thread, too, I think...

Yeah, I completely agree; and working at a university really brings into stark clarity the kind of gross overfunding sports and athletics receive in the United States. There's no real solution, unfortunately: it's a society thing. The simple reality in the US is, arts are a second, if not third or fourth, priority. Notice the distinct and utter lack of major treble choirs (the notable exception of the American Boys' Choir, of course) in the US, compared to a place like Toronto--still less Oxford, Cambridge, or London...

I confess that I'm not a sports fan at all: I have yet to find a single sport that's even remotely interesting to me for more than the two or three seconds it takes to move past ESPN on the way to BBC America. I grew up outdoors (BSA Eagle, Class of '98 ), and have a healthy respect for physical activity, but don't see the point in worshipping it to the exclusion of everything else, especially in the schools...

(steps off soapbox)

[kjackson83]

I remember hearing almost every Sunday in church, praises sung about a wrestler in my high school class but there was never any mention of all the different musical groups I was in. Not even when I made Dristict Band, County Band, County Orchestra and so on.
Oh well. It was a very long time ago.

Are District/County levels of competition in PA? In Texas, we have Region, Area, and State...

[kthomp]

i have shared some of their songs with my friends but as i am a teenager as are my friends they seem to follow the trend of music which atm in th uk is not choral so they dont really like libera.... they admire the boys and give them credit but none of them seem to be to intrested

[kjackson83]

i have shared some of their songs with my friends but as i am a teenager as are my friends they seem to follow the trend of music which atm in th uk is not choral so they dont really like libera.... they admire the boys and give them credit but none of them seem to be to intrested

It'll change, I promise . The UK has the greatest choral tradition on this earth--it might not always be oh-so-popular, but it's not going away...and things like Libera are, seriously, real attention-getters and profile-raisers for the genre of the (English) treble choir in general. There are groups in England whose music is getting better and better exposure because of this little bunch from Croydon, and Libera are great cultural ambassadors for Great Britain...

[William]

I agree! Many other countries have their choral groups as well, but Britain is way ahead of the others in quality and endurance. It is timeless music and will outlast any other because it has proven itself for centuries. Much of our cultural pop music is just fad and it will pass in time. (Some has already lived past it's time..need I say rap, hip-hop and heavy metal!)

[Jude Andrew]

I agree! Many other countries have their choral groups as well, but Britain is way ahead of the others in quality and endurance.

Why is that I wonder??? Any thoughts as to why Britain?

[TEB]

I remember hearing almost every Sunday in church, praises sung about a wrestler in my high school class but there was never any mention of all the different musical groups I was in. Not even when I made Dristict Band, County Band, County Orchestra and so on.
Oh well. It was a very long time ago.

Are District/County levels of competition in PA? In Texas, we have Region, Area, and State...

Yes! I am not 100% sure on how it works now, but when I was in high school, 1974 to 1977, you tried out for district band 1st. Even if you didn't pass the audition, you were still automatically in county band, if you so desired. You still had to do another audition but it was more to know where to place you, what seat( 1st chair, 2nd chair etc). As I was 1 of only 4 french horn players in high school at the time, I was fairly sought after. I was actually asked 2 years running to be in county orchestra without an audition beyond what my music teacher had told the county director.
Someday, when I have a little more time to write, way past bedtime right now, I will tell you all about trying out for district band. I was a fairly challenging.

[TEB]

I agree! Many other countries have their choral groups as well, but Britain is way ahead of the others in quality and endurance.

Why is that I wonder??? Any thoughts as to why Britain?

I think that because Ireland, Scotland and England are all much more cultured countries, as opposed to the United States and Canada, the choral group is much more appreciated.
I am not saying my country, the US and our northern neighbor don't have culture, because we both do, I am saying that there is more culture in the United Kingdom and you seem to be less looked down upon in the UK for enjoying that culture.
I dislike American football with a passion. Some of friends think I am really weird for that and they sincerely don't understand my love of music. Personally, I think they are weird for liking sports to the exclusion of anything else.

[kjackson83]

I agree! Many other countries have their choral groups as well, but Britain is way ahead of the others in quality and endurance.

Why is that I wonder??? Any thoughts as to why Britain?

Britain's culture and legacy have always differed markedly from everyone else's because of its most important geographical feature: the English Channel. Add to that the (former) vibrancy and power of the Anglican Church and its development of its own unique musical tradition and the result is a rich tradition of very ethnic musical ideas centred on the British Isles...

The treble originates from St Paul's admonition that women be silent in the church, handing soprano and alto parts over to boys. The massed treble choir, though, is something else--and many of Britain's oldest treble choirs stretch back hundreds upon hundreds of years. And that's not limited, necessarily, to Britain, either. Bach's choir--the Thomanerchor--was founded in 1212 and is the oldest continually existing treble choir ('knabenchor') in Germany. The British national treasure, the Choir of King's College--Cambridge, was founded in 1441, so not much longer after the Thomaners.

There isn't a single start point, but what's for sure is this: the Anglican Church is the prime reason for the specifically British treble choir tradition's excellence and popularity today. Anglicanism preserved its tradition of men and boys forming up choirs long after the Roman Catholic Church embraced the Italian ideal of the castrato/countertenor (ie Palestrina) and eventually women as well. Nearly every great treble choir in the world (with notable exceptions, of course) is Anglican or Anglican-derived (more appropriate in Libera's case, since not all of its members are either Anglican or Christian). When people think of treble or boys' choirs, they're usually thinking of an Anglican chorus.

The Anglican Church is also heavily invested in music, with sung prayers, vespers, liturgies, and the likes taking place almost continuously--so this has fuelled demand for extensive choral music and, of course, ranks of singers. Sung psalms and, of course, the precursor to the great American hymn tradition, still dominate the Anglican Church today. If there is a guarantor that the treble choir tradition will never die out or go the way of Ace of Bass, it's the Church of England...

[TullyBascombe]

I think you'd also have to factor in the relationship of the CoE to the British government and the major universities. I'm sure there's at least a little public financial support towards the maintenance of the choirs of St. Paul's, the Royal Chapel, Cambridge and Oxford. I don't think that any choirs on the European continent have public support, but I might be wrong about the Vienna Boys Choir.

In the US during the 19th century religion was dominated by more austere Protestant sects, many of which frowned upon elaborate music.

[kjackson83]

I think you'd also have to factor in the relationship of the CoE to the British government and the major universities. I'm sure there's at least a little public financial support towards the maintenance of the choirs of St. Paul's, the Royal Chapel, Cambridge and Oxford. I don't think that any choirs on the European continent have public support, but I might be wrong about the Vienna Boys Choir.

In the US during the 19th century religion was dominated by more austere Protestant sects, many of which frowned upon elaborate music.

That's a great point, and it's definitely worth pointing out that classical music gets support from the British state on a level virtually incomparable anywhere else. The best orchestras in the country receive state subsidies (grants) and the British Broadcasting Corporation--itself a national institution funded by Parliament (and that licence fee everyone keeps complaining about)--supports, all by itself, four or five orchestras ranking with the best in Europe, three choirs, and the world's largest classical music festival (the BBC Proms). And, as Tully Bascombe points out, the schools (ie Oxford, Cambridge, &c) receive considerable funding from the government as well, as does the Church of England.

[TEB]

I think you'd also have to factor in the relationship of the CoE to the British government and the major universities. I'm sure there's at least a little public financial support towards the maintenance of the choirs of St. Paul's, the Royal Chapel, Cambridge and Oxford. I don't think that any choirs on the European continent have public support, but I might be wrong about the Vienna Boys Choir.

In the US during the 19th century religion was dominated by more austere Protestant sects, many of which frowned upon elaborate music.

That's a great point, and it's definitely worth pointing out that classical music gets support from the British state on a level virtually incomparable anywhere else. The best orchestras in the country receive state subsidies (grants) and the British Broadcasting Corporation--itself a national institution funded by Parliament (and that licence fee everyone keeps complaining about)--supports, all by itself, four or five orchestras ranking with the best in Europe, three choirs, and the world's largest classical music festival (the BBC Proms). And, as Tully Bascombe points out, the schools (ie Oxford, Cambridge, &c) receive considerable funding from the government as well, as does the Church of England.

Which is why so many movie composers strive to use The London Symphony Orchestra. Quite probably the best symphony orchestra in the world.