January 7, 2023

Morning given over to rehearsal for the Chamber Chorus’s Friday concert. Are we in good shape? T is encouraging, but there were, to my mind, too many mistakes. My colleague being ill, I was the only bass. I did better than I expected, but in such a case you never know how loud to sing. T announced that we will not be continuing during the spring semester, but will reform in the fall when the Symphony calls a full-time conductor. This is actually good news. I need fewer complications until I go off vestry. There are ten sopranos and ten altogether of everybody else. The sopranos do not stop chattering for one moment, gabbling to one another during rests in songs they are at that moment singing. Every phrase must be discussed, an obligatory post mortem after every moment of singing.  From behind, you get ill watching heads whip back and forth to whisper to the ones on either side. I came to the brink of shouting Ladies! fifty times.