So this first one has been going around for awhile. David Belisle, the Rhode Island coach in the Little League World Series, pulls his team together after they were eliminated by Chicago in a close game. His speech is pretty damn good, and I find myself tearing up a bit there toward the end. This is how I feel about my choir at the end of every year, after every convention performance, and at the end of every tour. The video may be about baseball, but as we all know, it's really all about so much, much more. We've run into some problems embedding videos on choralnet lately, so you'll have to click through to view it:
The second video I found is one of the the most unique and original things I've seen in the choral world in a long, long time. The group performing is the Harmonious Choral of Ghana. In this clip they are performing the Call Him Louder portion of Mendelssohn's Elijah. Before you scoff at the singing, or the "instrumentation" or anything else, just look and listen with an open mind. What they are doing here is nothing short of amazing. First of all, they are making due with what they have, and they are in no way ashamed of it. Second of all, this performance has distinct cultural spin on it. We all filter our performances through our own cultural lens which informs how we direct the performance, but this cultural lens is HUGE. The result is, if you can get past the lack of authenticity and all that, one of the most original performances you'll see. I say we bring these folks to the next National ACDA convention!
Stephanie Henry says