Tuesday, March 26, 2002

Part-time job opening: (in case you missed it last week) As some of you may know, Bella's manager nonpareil of the past 4? years, Vivian Evans, now lives in Sacramento. Vivian currently commutes to be with us. She has chosen sanity over Bella, and will be stepping down at the end of this season. This means that Bella needs a new manager. This is a paid position requiring on average 40 hours a month of paid work. If you are interested, please see Vivian for more information. If you know someone who might be interested, please pass this information on to them.

Dress Rehearsal Dates: Wednesday, May 15, 7pm at St. Joseph the Worker church and Monday, May 13 at Corpus Christi Church in Oakland.

Reminder to singers in small group pieces: Remember that you need to rehearse on your own as time in chorus rehearsals will be limited. There will need to be sectionals. We have practice tapes. Please check the "small-group" list next to the sign-in sheet. Please also see if you can schedule a time to get together with yor group.

Era of the Week: Early Music covers several hundred years of history and music. In the interest of providing a little context for the music we sing, here are a few notes on events from one of our Early Music centuries.
The 12th Century (High Middle Ages) In abbess-composer Hildegard von Bingen's day, Europe was a collection of duchies, princedoms, kingdoms, and empires with constantly shifting borders. The Angevin Empire included England, Normandy, and Brittany, and 'Spain' had Leon, Aragon and Castile in the north with the Moors in firm control of the south. Germany consisted of princedoms such as Bavaria and Bermersheim (where Hildegard was born), which along with Burgundy and part of northern Italy fell under Frederick I's 'Holy Roman Empire.' The Byzantine Empire preserved the last remnants of the original Roman Empire around the Aegean Sea, and to the east the states of the Holy Land regularly changed hands between Islamic sultanates and invading Crusaders.

Under a powerful Roman Catholic Church, religious fervor found new expression in the growing cult of the Virgin Mary and in new, more ascetic monastic orders. Religion and the quest for power united the Church and various European heads of state in the Crusades, with the first war ending around 1095 and second and third installments taking place in the 12th century. But interaction between church and state was not always smooth. England's King Henry II famously feuded with his Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, over the distribution of power between ecclesiastic and civil courts, leading Henry's supporters to murder Becket. Later, Henry's son Richard (the Lionheart) was captured while on the Third Crusade, and the tumultuous period back home became the backdrop for the Robin Hood legends.

Most Europeans were peasants living on feudal domains, with no property, no education, no rights, and little knowledge of the world beyond the fields they worked. Yet learning and culture pressed on. 12th century inventions included windmills, mechanized looms, Artesian wells, glass mirrors, hard soap, and the compass. Oxford University was founded in 1168, and studies of classical philosophy, mathematics, magnetism, optics, and astronomy flourished. Architecture reached upward in the flying buttresses, ribbed vaulting, and stained glass of the Gothic school as the great cathedrals of Chartres and Notre Dames were built, while composers such as Leonin and Perotin practiced organum below. Also called Ars Antiqua (antique art), this early form of polyphony evolved away from the plainness of earlier chant with multiple and even contrasting melodic lines. Chretien de Troyes of France was the first author to draw on the Celtic legends of King Arthur and his knights and the first to put forth the idea of romantic love within marriage, and this era saw the emergence of the code of chivalry for the noble class.
Beyond Europe, Genghis Khan ruled Mongolia, the Hindu Angkor Wat temple was built in Cambodia, China's Sung Dynasty was in its third century, and Persian Omar Khayyam wrote his Rubaiyat. Though paper was virtually unknown in Europe, it had been in use for 1000 years in China, and a Korean library with tens of thousands of books burned to the ground in 1126. But Europe would have little peaceful contact with the rest of the world for many years to come. As the 12th century closed in Europe, Pope Innocent III ordered the fourth Crusade, which would lead to the sack of Constantinople and "a firm Byzantine hatred of the west."

Marcelle says: 'Be Well!'. With the 'flu felling 200 students in one school alone, and leaving only 13 out of 32 in my son's class, perhaps this is a good time to discuss that Ounce of Prevention of which your mother always spoke: You are a Singer. Please remember this, even as you are attempting to be SuperParent or SuperEmployee.

1. Cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze. Your chances for becoming Employee of the Month will dim if you are the one responsible for getting your boss sick.
2. Wash your hands and face often, especially after kissing that drippy-nosed little darling good-bye.
3. When you feel those irrepressible chills down your back, head for the bathroom. Hot, steamy showers work magic for keeping body temperature up, therefore fending off the germy nasties.
4. Gargle with warm salt or toothpaste water. Brush your teeth often.
5. Stay well-rested this flu season.
6. Then there's the old Vitamin C and Echinacea trick. The INSTANT you feel that niggling sore throat coming on, or that peculiar, vague tickle in your nose, or a tiny bit light-headed, give your immune system a boost - no, a kick in the pants. Some singers swear by 15,000 mg of Vitamin C and half a bottle of Echinacea the first day. [Keep the restroom door in sight.] Papaya enzyme. Pineapple. Zinc is also great but tends to give stomach trouble if in excess.
7. Drink drink drink drink. "Clear" liquids. Throat Coat Tea (Slippery Elm bark). Chicken soup. Imbibe with scrapey, salty chips - anything to annihilate the Little Buggers. I cannot get it past my conscience to kill cockroaches, but have no problem with cold and 'flu germs!

"Shameless Plugs" C Alumni Chorus presents Music of the Americas Sunday, April 7, 2002 -3pm Hertz Hall - UC Berkeley (Bancroft, near College)
Tickets $15 general/ $10 students and seniors. For tickets & information call 510 643 9645,talk to Jody (alto), or visit www.ucac.net.