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A collection of images, anecdotes and other material from a chorus whose members are not always all that serious!

The lighter side of making music
The lighter side of music students
The lighter side of auditions

The source for this material received by e-mail is unknown, but deserving of credit.

The Young Person's Guide to the Chorus
Top Ten Reasons for Being A...
New Entries in Grove's Dictionary
A little black humor: how to make an impression in your choir
Nota Bene for Musicians
On Musicians (Funny Quotes)
Musical Directions The Mozart Effect

The Young Person's Guide to the Chorus
In any chorus, there are four voice parts: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. Sometimes these are divided into first and second within each part, prompting endless jokes about first and second basses. There are also various other parts such as baritone, countertenor, contralto, mezzo soprano, etc., but these are mostly used by people who are either soloists, or belong to some excessively hotshot classical a cappella group (this applies especially to countertenors), or are trying to make excuses for not really fitting into any of the regular voice parts, so we will ignore them for now. Each voice part sings in a different range, and each one has a very different personality. You may ask, "Why should singing different notes make people act differently?", and indeed this is a mysterious question and has not been adequately studied, especially since scientists who study musicians tend to be musicians themselves and have all the peculiar complexes that go with being tenors, French horn players, timpanists, or whatever. However, this is beside the point; the fact remains that the four voice parts can be easily distinguished, and I will now explain how.

THE SOPRANOS are the ones who sing the highest, and because of this they think they rule the world. They have longer hair, fancier jewelry, and swishier skirts than anyone else, and they consider themselves insulted if they are not allowed to go at least to a high F in every movement of any given piece. When they reach the high notes, they hold them for at least half again as long as the composer and/or conductor requires, and then complain that their throats are killing them and that the composer and conductor are sadists. Sopranos have varied attitudes toward the other sections of the chorus, though they consider all of them inferior. Altos are to sopranos rather like second violins to first violins - nice to harmonize with, but not really necessary. All sopranos have a secret feeling that the altos could drop out and the piece would sound essentially the same, and they don't understand why anybody would sing in that range in the first place - it's so boring. Tenors, on the other hand, can be very nice to have around; besides their flirtation possibilities (it is a well-known fact that sopranos never flirt with basses), sopranos like to sing duets with tenors because all the tenors are doing is working very hard to sing in a low-to-medium soprano range, while the sopranos are up there in the stratosphere showing off. To sopranos, basses are the scum of the earth - they sing too loud, are useless to tune to because they're down in that low, low range - and there has to be something wrong with anyone who sings in the F clef, anyway.
THE ALTOS are the salt of the earth - in their opinion, at least. Altos are unassuming people, who would wear jeans to concerts if they were allowed to. Altos are in a unique position in the chorus in that they are unable to complain about having to sing either very high or very low, and they know that all the other sections think their parts are pitifully easy. But the altos know otherwise. They know that while the sopranos are screeching away on a high A, they are being forced to sing elaborate passages full of sharps and flats and tricks of rhythm, and nobody is noticing because the sopranos are singing too loud (and the basses usually are, too). Altos get a deep, secret pleasure out of conspiring together to tune the sopranos flat. Altos have an innate distrust of tenors, because the tenors sing in almost the same range and think they sound better. They like the basses, and enjoy singing duets with them - the basses just sound like a rumble anyway, and it's the only time the altos can really be heard. Altos' other complaint is that there are always too many of them and so they never get to sing really loud.
THE TENORS are spoiled. That's all there is to it. For one thing, there are never enough of them, and choir directors would rather sell their souls than let a halfway decent tenor quit, while they're always ready to unload a few altos at half price. And then, for some reason, the few tenors there are, are always really good - it's one of those annoying facts of life. So it's no wonder that tenors always get swollen heads - after all, who else can make sopranos swoon? The one thing that can make tenors insecure is the accusation (usually by the basses) that anyone singing that high couldn't possibly be a real man. In their usual perverse fashion, the tenors never acknowledge this, but just complain louder about the composer being a sadist and making them sing so high. Tenors have a love-hate relationship with the conductor, too, because the conductor is always telling them to sing louder because there are so few of them. No conductor in recorded history has ever asked for less tenor in a forte passage. Tenors feel threatened in some way by all the other sections - the sopranos because they can hit those incredibly high notes; the altos because they have no trouble singing the notes the tenors kill themselves for; and the basses because, although they can't sing anything above an E, they sing it loud enough to drown the tenors out. Of course, the tenors would rather die than admit any of this. It is a little-known fact that tenors move their eyebrows more than anyone else while singing.
THE BASSES sing the lowest of anybody. This basically explains everything. They are stolid, dependable people, and have more facial hair than anybody else. The basses feel perpetually unappreciated, but they have a deep conviction that they are actually the most important part (a view endorsed by musicologists, but certainly not by sopranos or tenors), despite the fact that they have the most boring part of anybody and often sing the same note (or in endless fifths) for an entire page. They compensate for this by singing as loudly as they can get away with - most basses are tuba players at heart. Basses are the only section that can regularly complain about how low their part is, and they make horrible faces when trying to hit very low notes. Basses are charitable people, but their charity does not extend so far as tenors, whom they consider effete poseurs. Basses hate tuning the tenors more than almost anything else. Basses like altos - except when they have duets and the altos get the good part. As for the sopranos, they are simply in an alternate universe which the basses don't understand at all. They can't imagine why anybody would ever want to sing that high and sound that bad when they make mistakes. When a bass makes a mistake, the other three parts will cover him, and he can continue on his merry way, knowing that sometime, somehow, he will end up at the root of the chord.

Top Ten Reasons For Being A...
Top Ten Reasons for Being a Soprano

10) The rest of the choir exists just to make you look good.
9) You can entertain your friends by breaking their wine glasses.
8) Can you name an opera where an alto actually got and kept the man?
7) When sopranos want to sing in the shower, they know the tune.
6) It's not like you are ever going to sing the Alto part by accident
5) Great costumes -- like the hat with the horns on it.
4) How many world famous Altos can you name?
3) They give CENSORED
2) When you get tired of singing the tune, you can sing the descant
1) You can sing along with Michael Jackson.

10) You don't have to tighten your shorts to reach your note.
9) You don't have to worry about a woman stealing your job.
8) Or a pre-adolescent boy.
7) Action heroes are always basses. That is -- if they ever sang, they would sing bass.
6) You get great memorable lyrics like bop, bop, bop, bop.
5) If the singing job doesn't work out, there's always broadcasting.
4) You never need to learn to read the treble clef.
3) If you get a cold, so what?
2) For fun, you can sing at the bottom of your range and fool people into thinking there's an earthquake.
1) If you belch while you're singing, the audience just thinks it's part of the score.

10) Tenors get high -- without drugs.
9) Name a musical where the Bass got the girl.
8) You can show the sopranos how it SHOULD be sung.
7) Did you ever hear of anyone paying $1000 for a ticket to see the Three Basses?
6) Who needs brains when you've got resonance?
5) Tenors never have to waste time looking through the self-improvement section of the bookstore.
4) You get to sing along with John Denver singing "Aye Calypso". 3) When you get really good at falsetto, you can make tons of money doing voice-overs for cartoon characters
2) Gregorian chant was practically invented for Tenors. Nobody invented a genre for basses.
1) You can entertain your friends by impersonating Julia Child.

10) You get really good at singing E flat.
9) You get to sing the same note for 12 consecutive measures.
8) You don't really need to warm up to sing 12 consecutive bars of E flat.
7) If the choir really sucks, it's unlikely the Altos will be blamed.
6) You have lots of time to chat during Soprano solos.
5) You get to pretend that you are better than the sopranos, because everybody knows that women only sing soprano so they don't have to learn to read music.
4) You can sometimes find part-time work singing Tenor.
3) Altos get all the great intervals.
2) When the sopranos are holding some outrageously high note at the end of an anthem, the altos always get the last words.
1) When the Altos miss a note, nobody gets hurt.

10) You get to pick the music YOU like.
9) You get your daily exercise waving your arms while working.
8) You can control the organ by just moving your baton.
7) You can turn the choir members' faces red by holding the last note an extra two beats.
6) When the anthem sounds good, you get to take the credit.
5) When it sounds bad, there are lots of likely culprits.
4) You have the best view of who is asleep in the congregation.
3) You get to change the music notes anyway you want.
2) You get to exercise rule 1 a lot (The director is boss).
1) On a practice night, when there is just one tenor present, you can bring tears to his eyes by suggesting he stagger his breathing.

New Entries Into Grove's Dictionary

• Aleatoric music: Music composed by the random selection of pitches and rhythms. Frequently found in the choir anthem.
• Antiphonal: Leaving your answering machine on all the time.
• Augmentation: Special surgery for altos involving the implantation of falsettos.
• Basso continuo: When the director can't get them to stop.
• Basso Obstinato: Recurring wrong notes in the bass section.
• Camerata: A small camera
• Cantata: a small can.
• Cantus firmus: A singer in good physical condition, as opposed to "cantus phlabbus" (see SACKBUTT.)
• Castrato: the highest male voice (some alteration required.)
• Concerto grosso: An accordion concert, or at least a "Polka" Mass.
• Contralto: An alto who has been convicted.
• Dominant: In a choral relationship, usually the alto.
• Etude: What comes right before the Beatitudes.
• Euphonium: A choir invitation. If they won't answer your letters, euphonium.
• Glissando: What directly precedes the highest note of a descant.
• Glockenspiel: A dark German beer. As in "Hey, Jim-Bob, throw me another Glockenspiel!
• Grand pause: When the conductor loses his place.
• Heterophony: The only kind of music allowed at the Southern Baptist Convention.
• Homophony: An irrational fear of bassoons.
• Incomplete Cadence: Harmonius interruptus.
• Leitmotif: Like a regular motif, but less filling.
• Letcher Lines: "Hey baby, what's your sign? Come to choir practice often?"
• Libretto: A soprano born in September. Usually highly compatible with a Saggitario (see Letcher Lines).
• Metronome: Small elves that live in the London subway system.
• Minuette: Roughly 52 seconds.
• Mode: A key, reflecting a particular emotion. As in "I can't sing that. I'm not in the mode."
• Obligato: A high-pitched turkey call. Usually heard in the wild as "obblegobble.
• Parallel organum: A method of musical gratification frowned on by Early Church fathers.
• Perfect pitch: Throwing a banjo in the dumpster without hitting the sides.
• Pizzacato: Literally "Cat Pizza." (Anchovies optional.)
• Polonaise: A condiment frequently put on a parrot sandwich.
• Polychoral motet: Six parrots singing "exultate justi".
• Prelude: A small Japanese car
• Recapitulation: What usually happens after you eat a parrot sandwich.
• Riff: What happens when someone takes your choir robe.
• Ritard: Well...the tenor section, mostly.
• Rondo: A popular sixties song, as in "Help, Help Me, Rondo".
• Rubato: A reddish-brown vegetable found on cat-pizzas.
• Sackbutt: A choral singer over 50.
• Score: Basses, 3; tenors, 0.,
• Sectional harassment lawsuit: What happens when the director suggests that the sopranos "sing from their diaphragm."
• Smorzando: The all-you-can-eat buffet at Luciano's.
• Sonata: A small son
• Theme: "We hate this anthem."
• Theme and variations: We hate this anthem, the composer, and all the composer's relatives.
• Tonic: What is generally enjoyed over ice with gin after choir rehearsal.

Nota Bene for Musicians
(Lifted from the Sibelius "Chat Page" User's Forum)

• p piano (soft) - the neighbors have complained
• f forte (loud) - the neighbors are out
• crescendo - testing the neighbors’ tolerance level
• ff - to hell with the neighbors
• pp - the neighbors are at the door
• dim - thick
• obbligato - being forced to practice
• rit (or rall) - coming up to the bit you didn’t practice
• con moto - I’ve got a car
• allegro - a little car
• maestro - a bigger car
• metronome - someone small enough to fit comfortably into a mini
• lento - the days before Easto (eggos, choccos, etc.)
• largo - German beer (“Handel’s Largo reaches parts other beers can not reach”)
• piu animato - if you don’t clean that rabbit’s hutch out, it will have to go
• interval - meet the rest of the orchestra in the bar
• perfect interval - drinks on the house
• cantabile - singing, i.e. drunk.
• con spirito - cantabile as a skunk
• cantata - a tin of fizzy drink
• tutti - ice cream
• coda - served with chipsa
• codetta - child’s portion
• chords - things keyboard players do with one finger
• dischords - things keyboard players do with two fingers
• suspended chord - rope for lynching the soloist
• rubato - ointment for musicians’ backs.
• subdominant - “I can’t play until I’ve asked the wife.”
• tonic - a pick-me-up
• syncopation - a bowel condition brought on by listening to jazz
• crochet - knitting
• quaver - the feeling as you get past a rall (see above)
• key signature - things to frighten everyone except drummers. Ignore them.
• time signatures - things to frighten drummers, who ignore them anyway.
• colla voce - this shirt is so tight I can’t talk
• professional - any musician who can’t hold down a steady job
• flats - apartments
• a tempo - speed up or slow down, take your pick.
• tempo di cafe - coffee break
• improvisation - what you do when your music falls down
• fugue - clever stuff
• prelude - boring exercise to warm up before the clever stuff
• acciaccaturas/appoggiaturas - insects found in the Amazon rain forests
• opus - exclamation made when the cat’s done poos on the carpet
• scales - fishy stuff
• trill - bird seed
• virtuoso - someone who can work wonders with easy-play music books
• antiphony - crossed lines
• melody - an ancient and now extinct musical form

(Variation) The Dilettante's Dictionary of Music

• ALLREGRETTO: When you're 16 measures into the piece and realize you took too fast a tempo
• ANGUS DEI: To play with a divinely beefy tone
• A PATELLA: Accompanied by knee-slapping
• APPOLOGGIATURA: A composition that you regret playing
• APPROXIMATURA: A series of notes not intended by the composer, yet played with an "I meant to do that" attitude
• APPROXIMENTO: A musical entrance that is somewhere in the vicinity of the correct pitch
• CACOUGHANY: A composition incorporating many people with chest colds
• CORAL SYMPHONY: A large, multi-movement work from Beethoven's Caribbean Period
• DILL PICCOLINI: An exceedingly small wind instrument that plays only sour notes
• FERMANTRA: A note held over and over and over and over and . . .
• FERMOOTA: A note of dubious value held for indefinite length
• FIDDLER CRABS: Grumpy string players
• FLUTE FLIES: Those tiny mosquitoes that bother musicians on outdoor gigs
• FRUGALHORN: A sensible and inexpensive brass instrument
• GAUL BLATTER: A French horn player
• GREGORIAN CHAMP: The title bestowed upon the monk who can hold a note the longest
• GROUND HOG: Someone who takes control of the repeated bassline and won't let anyone else play it
• PLACEBO DOMINGO: A faux tenor
• SCHMALZANDO: A sudden burst of music from the Guy Lombardo band
• THE RIGHT OF STRINGS: Manifesto of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Violists
• SPRITZICATO: An indication to string instruments to produce a bright and bubbly sound
• TEMPO TANTRUM: What an elementary school orchestra is having when it's not following the conductor (also common in municipal bands and community orchestras)
• TROUBLE CLEF: Any clef one can't read: e.g., alto clef for pianists

Musical Directions

• Adagio Formaggio: To play in a slow and cheesy manner.
• AnDante: A musical composition that is infernally slow.
• Angus Dei: To play with a divine, beefy tone.
• Anti-phonal: Referring to the prohibition of cell phones in the concert hall.
• A Patella: Unaccompanied knee-slapping.
• Appologgiatura: A composition, solo or instrument you regret playing.
• Approximatura: A series of notes played by a performer, not intended by the composer.
• Approximento: A musical entrance that is somewhere in the vicinity of the correct pitch.
• Bar Line: What musicians form after a concert.
• Concerto Grossissimo: A really bad performance.
• Coral Symphony: (see Beethoven-Caribbean period).
• Cornetti Trombosis Disastrous: entanglement of brass instruments that can occur when musicians exit hastily down the stage stairs.
• Dill Piccolino: A wind instrument that plays only sour notes.
• Fermantra: A note that is held over and over and over and...
• Fermoota: A rest of indefinite length and dubious value.
• Fog Hornoso: A sound that is heard when the conductor's intentions are not clear.
• Frugalhorn: A sensible, inexpensive brass instrument.
• Gaul Blatter: A French horn player.
• Good Conductor: A person who can give an electrifying performance.
• Gregorian Champ: Monk who can hold a note the longest.
• Kvetchendo: Gradually getting annoyingly louder.
• Mallade: A romantic song that's pretty awful.
• Molto bolto: Head straight for the ending.
• Opera buffa: Musical stage production by nudists.
• Poochini Musical: performance, accompanied by a dog.
• Pre-Classical Conservatism: School of thought which fostered the idea, "if it ain't baroque, don't fix it."
• Spritzicato: Plucking of a stringed instrument to produce a bright, bubbly sound, usually accompanied by sparkling water with lemon (wine optional).
• Tempo Tantrumo: When a young band refuses to keep time with the conductor.
• Tincanabulation: The annoying or irritating sounds made by extremely cheap bells.
• Vesuvioso: A gradual buildup to a fiery conclusion.."

A Little Black Humor: How to Make an Impression in Your Choir

1. Never be satisfied with the starting pitch. If the conductor uses a pitch-pipe make known your preference for pitches from the piano and vice versa.
2. Complain about the temperature of the rehearsal room, the lighting, crowded space, or a draft. It is best to do this when the conductor is under pressure.
3. Bury your head in the music just before cues.
4. Ask for a reaudition or seating change. Ask often. Give the impression you are about to quit. Let the conductor know you are there as a personal favor.
5. Loudly clear your throat during pauses (tenors are trained to do this from birth). Quiet instrumental interludes are a good chance to blow your nose.
6. Wait until well into a rehearsal before letting the conductor know that you do not have the music.
7. Look at your watch frequently. Shake it in disbelief occasionally.
8. Find an excuse to leave the rehearsal fifteen minutes early so that others will become restless and start to fidget.
9. Tell the conductor, "I can't find the beat." Conductors are always sensitive about their "stick technique" so challenge it frequently.
10. If your articulation differs from that of others singing the same phrase, stick to your guns. Do not ask the conductor which is correct until backstage just before the concert.

Funny Musician Quotations

• "He'd be better off shoveling snow" -- Richard Strauss on Arnold Schoenberg
• When told that a soloist would need six fingers to perform his concerto, Arnold Schoenberg replied, "I can wait."
• "I would like to hear Elliot Carter's Fourth String Quartet, if only to discover what a cranky prostate does to one's polyphony."-- James Sellars
• "Exit in case of Brahms"-- Philip Hale's proposed inscription over the doors of Boston Symphony Hall
• "Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos?"-- Igor Stravinsky
• "His music used to be original. Now it's aboriginal." -- Sir Ernest Newman on Igor Stravinsky
• "If he'd been making shell-cases during the war it might have been better for music."-- Maurice Ravel on Camille Saint-Saens
• "He has an enormously wide repertory. He can conduct anything, provided it's by Beethoven, Brahms or Wagner. He tried Debussy's La Mer once. It came out as Das Merde."-- Anonymous Orchestra Member on George Szell
• Someone commented to Rudolph Bing, manager of the Metropolitan Opera, that George Szell is his own worst enemy. "Not while I'm alive, he isn't!" said Bing.
• "After I die, I shall return to earth as a gatekeeper of a bordello and I won't let any of you enter."-- Arturo Toscanini to the NBC Orchestra
• "We cannot expect you to be with us all the time, but perhaps you could be good enough to keep in touch now and again."-- Sir Thomas Beecham to a musician during a rehearsal
• "Jack Benny played Mendelssohn last night. Mendelssohn lost."-- Anonymous
• The great German conductor Hans von Buelow detested two members of an orchestra, who were named Schultz and Schmidt. Upon being told that Schmidt had died, von Buelow immediately asked, "Und Schultz?" "Her voice sounded like an eagle being goosed." -- Ralph Novak on Yoko Ono
• "Parsifal--the kind of opera that starts at six o'clock and after it has been going three hours, you look at your watch and it says 6:20."-- David Randolph
• "One can't judge Wagner's opera Lohengrin after a first hearing, and I certainly don't intend hearing it a second time." -- Gioacchino Rossini
• "I liked the opera very much. Everything but the music."-- Benjamin Britten on Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress
• "Never look at the trombones, it only encourages them."--Richard Strauss
• "You can't possibly hear the last movement of Beethoven's Seventh and go slow." -- Oscar Levant, explaining his way out of a speeding ticket.
• "Wagner's music is better than it sounds."-- Mark Twain (guess Twain gets in here on literary merit alone)
• "Already too loud!"-- Bruno Walter at his first rehearsal with an American orchestra, on seeing the players reaching for their instruments.
• "I would rather play Chiquita Banana and have my swimming pool than play Bach and starve."-- Xavier Cugat
• "[Musicians] talk of nothing but money and jobs. Give me businessmen every time. They really are interested in music and art." --Jean Sibelius, explaining why he rarely invited musicians to his home
• "In opera, there is always too much singing."-- Claude Debussy
• "Oh how wonderful, really wonderful, opera would be if there were no singers!"-- Gioacchino Rossini

The Mozart Effect

A new report now says that the Mozart effect is a fraud (via Terry Teachout). For you hip urban professionals: no, playing Mozart for your designer baby will not improve his IQ or help him get into that exclusive pre-school. He'll just have to be admitted into Harvard some other way. Of course, we're all better off for listening to Mozart purely for the pleasure of it. However, one wonders that if playing Mozart sonatas forlittle Hillary or Jason could boost their intelligence, what would happen if other composers were played in their developmental time?

LISZT EFFECT: Child speaks rapidly and extravagantly, but never really says anything important.

RAFF EFFECT: Child becomes a bore.

BRUCKNER EFFECT: Child speaks very slowly and repeats himself frequently. Gains reputation for profundity.

WAGNER EFFECT: Child becomes a megalomaniac. May eventually marry his sister.

MAHLER EFFECT: Child continually screams - at great length and volume - that he's dying.

SCHOENBERG EFFECT: Child never repeats a word until he's used all the other words in his vocabulary. Sometimes talks backwards. Eventually, people stop listening to him. Child blames them for their inability to understand him.

BABBITT EFFECT: Child gibbers nonsense all the time. Eventually, people stop listening to him. Child doesn't care because all his playmates think he's cool.

IVES EFFECT: Child develops a remarkable ability to carry on several separate conversations at once.

GLASS EFFECT: Child tends to repeat himself over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again

STRAVINSKY EFFECT: Child is prone to savage, guttural and profane outbursts that often lead to fighting and pandemonium in the preschool

BRAHMS EFFECT: Child is able to speak beautifully as long as his sentences contain a multiple of three words. However, his sentences containing four or eight words are strangely uninspired.

CAGE EFFECT: Child says absolutely nothing for 4 minutes, 33 seconds.

BARTÓK EFFECT: Child becomes more and more dissonant. Has trouble maintaining harmony with his peers. Difficulty following rules. Presents an increasingly bad tone overall and is unable to resolve anything.

STOCKHAUSEN EFFECT: All you get out of the child is an atonal cacophony, but those around him are conned into believing it has some sort of artistic merit.

BEETHOVEN EFFECT: Child spends far too much time at the keyboard and goes deaf. (If the child doesn't suffer from deafness, it's the Wakeman effect).

TAVENER EFFECT: Child sings a lot.

The source for this material received by e-mail is also unknown, and deserving of credit.

Actual Answers From Students on Music Exams

• The principal singer of nineteenth century opera was called pre-Madonna.
• It is easy to teach anyone to play the maracas. Just grip the neck and shake him in rhythm.
• Gregorian chant has no music, just singers singing the same lines.
• Sherbet composed the Unfinished Symphony.
• All female parts were sung by castrati. We don't know exactly what they sounded like because there are no known descendants.
• Young scholars have expressed their rapture for the Bronze Lullaby, the Taco Bell Cannon, Beethoven's Erotica, Tchaikovsky Cracknutter Suite, and Gershwin's Rap City in Blue.
• Music sung by two people at the same time is called a duel; if they sing without music it is called Acapulco.
• A virtuoso is a musician with real high morals.
• Contralto is a low sort of music that only ladies sing.
• Diatonic is a low calorie Schweppes.
• Probably the most marvelous fugue was the one between the Hatfields and the McCoys.
• A harp is a nude piano.
• The main trouble with a French Horn is that it is too tangled up.
• An interval in music is the distance from one piano to the next.
• The correct way to find the key to a piece of music is to use a pitchfork.
• Agitato is a state of mind when one's finger slips in the middle of playing a piece.
• Refrain means don't do it. A refrain in music is the part you'd better not try to sing.
• I know what a sextet is but I'd rather not say.
• Most authorities agree that music of antiquity was written long ago.
• My favorite composer was Opus. Agnus Dei was a woman composer famous for her church music.
• Henry Purcell was a well-known composer few people have ever heard of.
• Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic.
• Rock Monanoff was a famous post-romantic composer of piano concerti.

Concert Singers members are enthusiastic recruiters of new singing talent. They're eager to welcome just about anyone to our happy family. And we make good cookies, too.

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