Last night my choir, Crowd Around, sang at the Blackheath Choir Festival. We've done the festival before but never on a Saturday night, which is the biggie, so to speak. August company included, Bellacapella, Icing On the Cake, Gay and Lesbian Choir and Men Wot Sing. We are like small town yokels amongst this group of giants, who all 'audition' prospective members. So there was pressure, if you know what I mean.
And I felt it. It was, I think the most difficult performance I have ever has to do. My throat was like a desert from our first walk-on and right before my solo in And So It Goes, I truly thought that my vocal folds would seize up. They didn't and I think the solo came off okay - through sheer force of will, if nothing else. But tough, yes, and later on I was exhausted.
It's funny really. I've done plenty of solos in front on many kinds of audiences. And yet, crank up the pressure, situate the performance in a more formal environment, add in unknowables (the choir after us was singing And So It Goes too) and the body can become a nervous shambles.
Rising above the shambles is the key. How to find that key is mysterious and beyond my reckoning, for no matter how prepared one is, the moment can sneak up like a shadow in lamplight.
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