Christmas Concert!

First of all: a very belated Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Go Dawgs! I'm going to take a crack at catching up on missed updates, starting with the chronologically earliest event I haven't talked about. By my reckoning, that's the Christmas concert.

As I mentioned last time, I helped the high school chorus with their Christmas concert. The concert took place in the town's Christian church. It's a wee little church tucked away in an alley. It feels a lot like the tiny countryside churches I'm used to seeing in northeast Georgia. I still haven't figured out what denomination it is, but they've got stained glass windows, long wooden pews, and even one of those little wooden hanging things that records last Sunday's attendance, attendance for that Sunday last year, offering collected last week, etc. In short, it was everything I think a church ought to be: modest and small-scale.

Owing both to the anthropologist in me and also to just pure curiosity, I looked around for fixtures of Christian churches that would be familiar to me. Sure enough, behind every pew was a bible and a hymnal. I spent about five minutes flipping through the hymnal, trying to find a song I recognized. I didn't, but that doesn't mean there aren't any songs in common--I don't know many hymns by name.

The place filled up, and one man dressed in a suit, who I assumed was the preacher, called for a prayer. He didn't lead a prayer; he just called for a moment of silencer to begin. Three groups performed: an elementary school chorus, an adult choir, and our high school chorus. The elementary kids were absolutely adorable, and I was able to snag a video of them singing. The adult choir also did a great job, though the only evidence I have of this comes from two clips which are too hefty for me to upload. But more on them later. I think the high school chorus did well. I can't be sure, because I was an honorary bass for the day, and was so busy trying to sight-read my sheet music that I didn't get much chance to listen to the others. I already knew all the songs we sang--Angels We Have Heard on High, We Wish You as Merry Christmas, O Tannenbaum, and Amazing Grace--but I've always sung the melody for those. Amazing Grace sounded great from my vantage point, especially since we smoothed out the group's "th," "v," and "r" pronunciation.

This is me with the chorus. We had an awesome time.

Afterwards, the chorus conductor invited me to come to dinner with the adult choir that evening. I agreed, and met them at Roxy, the town's "American" restaurant, so named because they've got burgers and fries and--best of all--A&W root beer. (I haven't met a single Japanese person who likes the taste of root beer. The people I've asked have said it tastes like medicine to them.) There were about ten of them, and I recognized a few: one works at the local Fujifilm place, and handles official photography for high school events; one I had seen at the local mall a few times; and another I recognized as the guy I thought was the preacher. Thinking they were the official church choir, I was intrigued as to whether they would drink. It turns out they do, but nothing excessive.

Once everyone had arrived, the occasion officially began with the choir's greeting song. They have a full-length four-part a cappella song they sing at the beginning of every social outing. To call it a drinking song unfairly implies they're alcoholics, but the song has the convivial feel of a lot of drinking songs I've heard.

Next, everyone introduced themselves to me. One of them--the only low bass--is a 72-year-old who guides tours of the island. The average age of the rest of the group is about 30-40. Soon after the introductions, they asked me to join the choir. I immediately agreed. They have rehearsal every Wednesday at 7:30, and there are occasional concerts. More on that later. Dinner was great, and we went to karaoke next. I've officially been spoiled: doing karaoke with dedicated, well-practiced singers is fun on an entirely different level from singing with work buddies. Nobody smoked, only one person got exceptionally drunk, and holy moly, can these people sing. One of the sopranos--who works at Roxy and is the preacher's wife, though I still haven't met the preacher--took on All By Myself, I Will Always Love You, and Lovin' You, and nailed every single note.

One of my goals coming over here was to find some form of outlet for singing. I thought karaoke would have to suffice, but I still hoped to find a chorus I could join to satisfy me like the UGA Glee Club did. Ever since the first time I heard the UGA Accidentals sing, I've also dreamed of being in an a cappella group. I'm still simply shocked that I managed to find a casual a cappella group that sings songs in both English and Japanese.