Belleza ensemble perfects Christmas carols for performance

Friday, October 28, the Belleza Ensemble participated in a free choral festival run by Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. The festival day was divided into two sections. First, the 15 participating choirs were divided into five groups and sent to various venues in town. The second half of the day was spent together with all the choirs, plus the Westmont choirs, at Santa Barbara’s First Presbyterian Church.

The Fresno Christian ensemble was sent to the First Congregational Church of Santa Barbara, and performed along with two other choirs from Santa Barbara and Santa Maria. The sole purpose of this portion of the day was to help each choir improve on their music.

The adjudicator was Dr. Kuan Fen Liu, a music professor from California State University Channel Islands. Her job was to listen to each choir and work with them on improvements. Dr. Kuan Fen Liu very quickly gave many positive comments about the ensemble’s lovely tone, balance, vowels and choice of literature. She was also intrigued by the standing position of the women.

Choir teacher and ensemble director, Susan Ainley reflects on the recent ensemble trip to Westmont College. She enjoyed being able to listen to other groups as well as get feedback on how our own ensemble is doing.

“Westmont is a free festival put on by the college for the purpose of recruiting students and for young choirs to learn something about music,” Ainley said. “This is our second year going to Westmont, I took the ensemble last year, and it was such a positive experience that I decided to take them again this year.

Some things that we are working on to prepare for the Christmas program are our parts, and perfecting the songs. We are mostly practicing hymns and classic Christmas songs for the program. The ensemble group has been invited to many places to sing and one of those places is my church, Foundations Baptist Church.–Celeste Counts

“My favorite part about the trip was just listening to the ensemble,” Ainley continued. “They were  given the chance to sing in such a beautiful venue with great acoustics, where no amplifications is needed. I also liked getting to hear choirs that we never get to hear, because most of them are from the coast or the southern part of California.”

Most choirs stand in rows, relatively close to each other. As opposed to our ensemble which stands as individuals, far apart from one another. They also are mixed in their voicing’s, meaning the sopranos and altos don’t necessarily stand next to each other. This creates a full sound, with more volume, and a rich resonant tone. Each member must really listen in order to blend with people across the room. It creates a strong presence on stage, and the adjudicator noticed this right away.

The second half of the day was spent together with all 15 choirs, plus the Westmont choirs, at Santa Barbara’s First Presbyterian Church.  Each choir sang one piece from their earlier adjudication. Susan Ainley made a last minute switch from a classical Latin piece to a modern poem, “Look! Be; leap”. At the conclusion, the crowd erupted into generous clapping and cheering. The final event of the day concluded with all the choirs joining together to sing one song. This year’s piece was Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus.

One of the things the choir students look forward to is meeting other choir members from up and down California. Westmont provided dinner for everyone, with lots of time to mingle. An added bonus was a visit from ensemble alumna Olivia Tandadjaja, ‘16, who now attends Westmont. She was able to come to the concert and group hug the ensemble.

First year member of ensemble, Ashley Zamarripa, ‘19, enjoys the many opportunities that she is given while being in the group. Zamarripa always looks forward to the trips that they go on and also enjoys being able to sing and hang out with friends.

“I have been to Santa Barbara in the past, but have never been with ensemble before,” Zamarripa said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t get to do much sightseeing or exploring of the city. However, we did get to do lot of singing and spend a lot of time together. I really liked just hanging out with the girls.”

Now that the ensemble is done with this festival, they, and the other Fresno Christian choirs, can focus on the upcoming Christmas program. The program will take place on Dec. 12 in the GL Johnson chapel. This year, the junior high and high school choirs will present “Lessons and Carols”. This Christmas service originated in England in the late 1800’s.

The ensemble group has been invited to sing in many different settings. Some places that they have been invited to include; business gatherings, employee parties and women’s gatherings at churches in the area. One reason that the ensemble group has been invited to so often is because of all the fundraising they did last year for our New York trip, which helped get their name out there.

Looking forward to the Christmas season, and the events it brings, Celeste Counts, ’18, enjoys singing with the ensemble group. Counts has been involved in ensemble for a while and never has quite overcome the fears that preforming brings.

“Some things that we are working on to prepare for the Christmas program are our parts, and perfecting the songs,” Counts said. “We are mostly practicing hymns and classic Christmas songs for the program. The ensemble group has been invited to many places to sing and one of those places is my church, Foundations Baptist Church.

“My mom is in charge of the ladies Christmas party for my church, and she had the idea of having the ensemble group sing there, and everyone loved it,” Counts continued. “Even though I get nervous sometimes singing on stage, I am very excited for all the upcoming events.”

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/293018767″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”150″ iframe=”true” /]

During the program, there will be nine different readings from the Bible about the fall of man to his birth. The service always begins with the carol “Once in Royal David’s City”. Both congregation and choirs will sing the traditional Christmas carols, with the choirs filling in with other composed Christmas songs, solos and duets. Accompanist, Ben Certain, brought the plan for this service to Mrs. Ainley, and the two have worked to bring as much Christmas joy as possible into one concert.

Making sure that everyone stays on the same page, Josiah Giles, ’20, enjoys singing with the choir. Giles has been involved with choir since he was in eighth grade.

“I am looking forward to the upcoming Christmas program,” Giles said. “This will be my second time singing in the program, because I sang in it last year as an eighth grader. One challenge that we have as a group is just making sure that we are all on the same page. This year we will be holding binders with our music in is and hopefully that will help us stay on track.”

Start off your Christmas cheer with a evening celebration full of your favorite Christmas carols and tunes in the GL Johnson Chapel, Dec. 12.

For more articles read, Student of the Month Cate Vander Kooi.