I still can't believe it happened! Last Saturday, I sang at the concert that Ennio Morricone conducted at Auxerre, Yonne, France, his "Sergio Leone Suite", bits from "Torquemada", "Mission", "Casualties of War". Just the idea of being conducted by the composer himself was and is overwhelming.
A few bars from Mission hold the fort at the back of my mind, day or ..night. I feel obsessed : "poena, poena nostra" relentlessly comes up, like a scratched vinyl record. And I didn't sing that part! Alternately, Susanna Rigacci's splendidly mellow voice squats my brain.
Well Mr Morricone was awesome, very nice and quiet as a person, very professional of course. He kindly signed his name on my "Leone Suite" score. Yesterday morning I placed it right before one of Mozart's masses in my library...superb alphabetical surprise.
His way of conducting was unusual to me who am used to some sort of fusion with the choir masters I sing for -or with or to. Not that it was mechanical actually but I felt like a cog in a machine, like a device programmed to convey emotions to the audience, like a piano key, not like a human being under his -rare- gaze.There was no feeling flowing between him and me- me out of a hundred singers of course-, no spark of complicity, the obvious goal being the best rendering of what was written on the score I was holding in my hands.Is it because it is
his own music that he is conducting? Would it be different if he were conducting Mozart or Bach?
Anyway, thank you Stefano, for the work you did with us at the 2 rehearsals, before leaving us into the hands of the Master.
Singing with the "Roma Sinfonietta" orchestra was a marvellously unforgettable experience. I was just behind the percussion instruments. It was so primal and exhilarating.Thank you all.
It was THE experience of a lifetime for a modest alto choir singer. I may have sung music of a higher spiritual level in the past, Monteverdi, Bach's Passions especially, but singing "Abolisson", "On earth as it is in heaven" conducted by the composer himself can't be matched.
I'll be forever grateful to those who made this possible, the organisers of the "Festival Musique et Cinéma" of Auxerre, France and their sponsors.
Thanks to Patrick Bacot, directeur de l'Ecole nationale de Musique d'Auxerre without whom nothing would have happened.
