On Nov. 5, Lexington High School’s honors choirs–Concert Choir, Chamber Singers, and Madrigal Singers–participated in the Echoes of Awakening Concert at the Pilgrim Congregational Church in Lexington. In celebration of Bulgaria’s Independence Day, they performed a Balkan-influenced repertoire.
With Lexington’s singers having a history of performing Balkan songs, the choir worked with vocal coach Elitsa Stoyneva to perfect their tone.
“They really rose to the occasion when Elitsa came,” Andrew Scoglio, an LHS teacher and director of Chamber Singers, said.
Moreover, Scoglio’s students had to learn an additional three pieces just two weeks before the concert, which significantly increased the pressure on the group. Fortunately, experienced students were able to support the rapid learning pace.
“There were a couple of students in the choir who had worked with Elitsa before, so they were able to help me and the singers get a sense of the style before Elitsa came,” Scoglio said.
Rehearsal was no easy feat, as directors intentionally chose complex songs.
“The first piece, Boundless, was very aleatoric and challenging. It was something the students may not have been exposed to,” Scoglio said. “They were all layering and echoing at different times, and it created a cool sense of wonder and freedom and this kind of confidence.”
However, preparing for the concert demanded more than simply vocal training. For example, groups also conducted an extensive literary analysis of Bulgarian texts as part of the rehearsal process, allowing them to better understand the music’s origins and influences.
“[In the Bulgarian pieces] there was a lot of messaging around their traditional culture of arranged marriages, and there’s certainly the history of that and [necessary] dissection of that coded language,” Scoglio said.
For many of the singers, preparing for the concert was both demanding and rewarding.
“[The most challenging part of rehearsal] was fine-tuning all the dynamics and little nuances that would change the course of the entire piece,” Sid Shankar, a freshman at LHS and one of the Concert Choir’s selected soloists, said.
These obstacles were prominent in the piece Rokuvet VII, where the sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses alternated between lines while simultaneously tracking the changing dynamics.
Shankar noted the importance of dividing the parts between himself and fellow soloist Ayla Das, a freshman at LHS. Elements like harmonization and deciding when to be louder or softer were all improvised.
“The actual performance was the only time we sang our solo how it was supposed to be,” Shankar said. “Right before Ayla and I went on, Ayla said, ‘Whatever happens, it’s going to be okay.’ And it did work out in the end, even though we did not nail it during rehearsal time.”
For Shankar, one of the best aspects of chorus at LHS is the bonds he forms with his peers.
