Last night at the Old First Presbyterian Church, Old First Concerts took a departure from its usual Friday night offerings. The program was called Graduation Concert and Ceremony, held for the Chorus School Level IV division of the San Francisco Girls Chorus (SFGC). The program was led by Level IV Director Monica Baruch with César Cancino at the piano. In what seems to be common practice for SFGC, there was also a generous amount of staging, aligning the vocalists in different configurations to reflect the music being performed.
Because the ceremony was “the main event,” the opening concert took less than an hour’s duration. That concert had a title: The Elements: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire Songs. Each of those four thematic offerings was relatively brief. Nevertheless, it was frustrating that text sheets were not prepared, particularly since the entire program was sung in an impressive diversity of languages from not only Eastern Europe but also Hawaii.
To be fair, however, this event was more about ceremony than about the music. Nevertheless, what was being celebrated was the combined musical achievement of the ensemble; and it would have been a bit more satisfying had the music received more attention than the ceremony. Also, the event turned out to be more challenging than usual where the livestream was concerned. Usually, the camera work is relatively straightforward; but it was hard to shake the impression that both audio and video technicians had to contend with more than they usually anticipated. My guess is that I was not the only music lover to come away from the streamed experience feeling more frustrated than in the past.
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