The Munich Bach Choir accepts me!

I can scarcely believe I'm in...

Photo from http://www.muenchener-bachchor.de/english/c_fotos.htm  (I'm obviously not in here yet!)

 In the last couple weeks I've attended (and sung in) four rehearsals of the Münchner Bach-Chor, and last night after rehearsal I auditioned for Herr Direktor Albrecht and the assistant conductor, who accompanied the audition pieces.  It's been a long time since I've felt "performance" nerves like this.  Unfortunately for the exhaustion factor, we were being auditioned after the regular rehearsal, starting at 9:40 p.m.(!) and our little group of four wanna-be's waited out in the hall as we were called into the rehearsal room one by one.  I was third, so started singing around 10:15 pm...  I had chosen the aria "Et Exultavit" from the Bach Magnificat which may not have been the best choice as it sits in a relatively high tessitura, but it went OK.  Then a little sight reading, ear testing, and asking if I recognized the key of a piece (which took me longer than it should have, I'm usually instantaneous... I guess I was tired and nervous).  This is all in German, of course, although he did say it was fine to identify keys and notes in English when asked.  There were a couple times when I'm not sure I understood him, but luckily the language of singing (and gesturing!) is more or less universal.
   Then, as for the previous two singers, they asked me to leave the room while they decided.  I had already gathered that the two previous singers, both women, had gotten in, so I figured this reduced my chances.... So a few minutes later he asked me back in and said I needed to "help them" -- they said I had a good "big" voice, more suited to Romantic period singing, and they tested me briefly again to see if I could sing a straighter, purer, Baroque sound.  I guess I need to concentrate more on that when singing Bach, but it seems like I passed muster.  He'll "discuss" with me again in three months to see if I feel like my voice is right for the choir :-)

In the mean time though, this is very exciting!!  I've always wondered whether I'd be "good enough" to sing in a big city world-class choir, and this was my chance.  It's intense though:  2 rehearsals a week (Monday and Wednesday evenings) from 7 to 9:30 each.  We move through material very fast - partly because most of the members already have sung much of this, but also the choir is full of good readers. We'll be doing three major concerts all before Christmas.  Exciting but also a little intimidating...  The choir members seems quite nice in general, but the language barrier (although I'm not bad at this point) prevents me from easily chatting and getting to know people as of yet.

 Munich Bach-Choir website 
Our first concert is the Bach B-minor Mass, which is a huge work, already in less than four weeks(!).  The Munich Bach Orchestra will perform with us and seems to be associated with the choir.   This, and most concerts will take place in a beautiful 1122-seat auditorium, the Prinzregententheater (the "Regent Prince Theater"):   a little info on the Prinzregententheater

When I saw the postcards for the B-minor Mass concert publicity I nearly fell over:  I have certainly never sung in a group that can ask (and fill seats) for this kind of real money:  starting at 39 Euro ($50-ish) the prices go up to 69 Euro (about $90)!   Yikes.  I guess I'd better get practicing.