Choir on the QM2

(thinking of UMD Chorale, SJC, BSU, and my old Castleton Singers!)

We joined the choir!! Yes, the Queen Mary II has a choir and Sarah and I are now members! It is a really interesting group in that many of the singers have been regular passengers on the QM2 and know both each other, and the director. It took us a while to figure things out (there is definitely an “insiders knowledge” element to the ensemble), but after a little bit of listening and being respectful, we started to figure out the “hidden curriculum”. After this it took little time before we started to make real friends. I love the power of a choir!!!

The music we are learning is mostly popular show tunes like Phantom, Les Miserables, and classic older popular music (think your grandmother’s favorites), but regardless it is just plain fun to sing. There are all the typical members personalities you see in any church or community choir (I was privileged to have an old lady scold me for not sitting close enough to another tenor in my row), but all that makes for a feeling of home! For Sarah and me, half the fun is talking about the rehearsals after they are over. The “director” is the pianist in the upscale pub and the regulars love him. He is about to change ships and everyone is very sad.

After a few days the tenors and basses around me figured out that I am a trained singer and started to ask a lot of questions. Sarah was soon discovered too, and it would seem that we are now unofficial section leaders and it feels really nice. It has been a long time since I have just been a plain old singer in the back row.

One of the things that has been really interesting is to see how much more of a singing culture there is in other countries. Many of the singers have talked to me about all the singing that goes on in their communities and how different it seems to be from the United States. One of my new tenor buddies is really pushing me to go to a soccer or rugby game in England to listen to tens of thousand of terrible singers just make a joyful noise singing their local sports songs. I really hope I get to do just that!

The one negative experience about rehearsals has been the weather affecting the room. The rehearsal space is down in the ship where there are no windows and where those 21 foot swells I mentioned can be really felt. Despite the precautions of the music space being built for a ship, the swells have been so bad that the keyboard actually took off during one rehearsal! As a result of this, the only times I feel slightly seasick is during rehearsals. But watching a choir director and his singers chase a piano across the hall in rough seas was worth it 🙂

As for our final concert, we sang in the grand entrance to the ship and about two hundred people came to listen. It was incredible to see such a big audience. And I must confess that when Sarah first suggested I joint he choir I was reluctant, but now I am so glad I did!

ps I have more media to upload but I can’t for another week. So check back later!