The Zeiterion

Since updating the blog this morning and creating the registration form, a number of you have written to ask about the "new" concert venue and size limits of the chorus this year.

To begin, the rent at St. Anthony's increased to such a great extent this year that the NBSO had to seek another venue for the annual concert. The next best venue for this program is the Zeiterion.

With regard to the chorus, the biggest issue with the Zeiterion is that we have to limit the size of the chorus to 80. This is a big reduction, considering that at St. Anthony's the chorus could more-or-less be as large as we wanted it to be.

The non-Messiah work for the program is a Gloria by Bach. Because Bach wrote the Gloria for SSATB, we are building the chorus with a soprano section that is larger in number than the other sections for this concert.

The section quotas are as follows:

• Soprano: 30 (15 per section)
• Alto: 16
• Tenor: 16
• Bass: 16

(That's a total of 78, but we're allowing for a two-person margin of error.)

Because of having a necessary cap on participating singers, there were several ways to approach chorus participation. One way would be to audition all members. Another would be to have a first-come/first-served basis. Another would be to work with our various community chorus directors to build a core roster and then bring on non-affiliated singers. We ultimately decided to work with our community chorus directors first and then bring on other singers on a first-come/first-served basis.

Early in the summer, I contacted the directors of all of our participating choruses to submit names/voice types of participating members by July 15. Some directors submitted names, others didn't. With the list of singers I received, I began creating the chorus roster, and this means that the alto section is currently filled. (Soprano, Tenor, and Bass still have a way to go.)

By mid-September, I'll have a much clearer idea of how many singers we have, and this may allow us to tweak the quotas. For instance, if we have only 10 basses, this might mean that we could bring on an additional 6 altos...and so on.

I hope you find this explanation helpful. As you can imagine, none of this has been easy, from trying to find a suitable venue to figuring out how to bring a chorus of 110+ down to 80.

The best advice I can give to anyone--alto or otherwise--is to complete the form and make sure to check that you're willing to be on the wait list. I'll be in touch as soon as I can to confirm everything.