Wakefield Treble Ensemble Critique

Jaden Argueta

At 7:00pm on Friday, December 7, 2018 at St. Marks Methodist Church Wakefield and

Heritage choirs preformed. We sang many traditional pieces, along with upbeat Christmas songs.

Including “Ave Maria”, “A Jubilant New Song”, “Cold of Winter”, “Season of Peace”, “Under

Winter Moon”, “Ecce Novum”, and “Sing We Now of Christmas”. Although our overall

performance was great there were still many places we could improve.

Our first song of the concert was “Ave Maria”. It was our second best song of night

because of the connection with the audience and how the choir sounded. For this piece we were

very close to the audience, meaning they could hear us individually. The set up made the song

feel very intimate and exposed the singers. Another reason “Ave Maria” was a strong piece was

because of the sound of the choirs. The echo of the church amplified the sound and emphasis the

separation of the two choirs. Also we produced a very full sound with round vowels, which

improved our pitch. Finally, our articulation was every good making it easy to understand what

we were saying.

The next song we sang that night was “A Jubilant New Song”. It was not as strong as

“Ave Maria” due to the first choir being off tempo and our tone was not as full as possible. On

the section of the piece where we sing “Sing your praise with lyre”, you could hear the youth of

the ensemble because our tone does not match the older singers. In addition, our last note was off

making it obvious that not all the singers knew their note. Although this piece was not our best,

the men in this song sounded very strong and had a full sound. Another good quality of this

piece was our articulation. In the recording, you can clearly understand what we are saying and

hear our constants.

 Our third song of the night was “Cold of Winter”. This piece was sung by only the treble

ensemble. This was not one of best piece due to the lack of articulation. In the beginning of the

song we sing “Cold of winter “, however about half of the choir did not make a “C” sound. This

made the first line sound distorted. We did this in many other places of the song as well.

Another thing we could improve on this piece is our sound. Our fullness to our tone is very

similar to our sound in “A Jubilant New Song” , lacking much deeph. To improve we could

focus more on singing in our “oo” space and emphasising our constants.

The fourth song of the concert was “A Season of Peace”. Overall the song was okay with

minor mistakes. The strongest portion of the piece was the ending. Everyone was on the correct

pitch and had a very full sound. However, in other areas of the song we did not make our vowel

round and did not articulate correctly. Many of the words were hard to understand. Also, our

tone was again very young sounding in most of the piece.

“Under Winter Moon” was our starting song of the second half of the performance. This

piece was one of our worst. A part of the choir at the beginning were too fast , speeding up the

tempo, which changed the soft sound of the song. Also the second portion of the song, when we

sing “winter” again, most people did not sing the first “winter” and did not change position on

stage as we were directed to. Due to the confusion cause by the poorly executed transition, the

next “winter” and next line were hard to understand, since everyone was singing different words.

Although this piece was a mess, it still had elements of good. Such as our sound being very full

and having extremely strong alto parts.

The second to last song of the night was “Ecce Novum”. “Ecce Novum” was by far the

best piece of the night. We had a full sound and it was easy to tell everyone in the choir knew

their parts. Also the heart of the song was very strong, beginning the second part of the song with
fullness and power of the voice. Another portion of the song we did very well was the ending.

We ended with a soft sound which contrasted the strong powerful tone of the previous verse.

Our last song of the night was “Sing We Now of Christmas” . This pieces was not as

strong as it could have been especially since it was the last song. Most of our “Christmases”

sound as though we were singing “christuhs” instead of “chirsmahs”. Also the line “Glory to

God in the highest”, I did not hear the first soprano part. Finally the high “Sing we noel” did not

sound like we hit the high note on sing. However, in this piece we also had a full sound and we

articulate correctly making it easy to understand.

As a whole the concert was good with some problem of timing and pitch accuracy. We

could definitely improve by practicing our tone, articulation, and vowel shape. The entire night

showcased our improvements from previous concerts ang highlighted our strengths along with

our weaknesses. However the connection with the audience and music will be what stays in our

hearts.