Sunset in Paris
On Thursday we saw a great concert at the Eglise Saint Merri. It was convenient, as the church is just a few blocks from our apartment. The concert was performed by a relatively new group called Note et Bien. They are an orchestra and choir association, and perform 4 concerts a year. They performed an all Leonard Bernstein concert. The first performed the Chichester Psalms, followed by an orchestral West Side Story medley and closed with a choral/orchestra medley from West Side Story. The group was conducted by Alexandra Cravero. They did a nice job on the Chichester Psalms, but it would have been more effective with a large tenor and bass section. The women sounded great, but there just were not enough men to cover all the splits and their sound was often buried in the thick orchestration. The soloists, Stefanie Raffaello, sang the second movement with ease and sweetness. We noticed an add in the program for more tenors and basses. This would be a great group to sing with. They have a lot of potential, and what a great idea to form a group composed of both orchestra and chorus.
On Friday we decided to visit the Cimetiere du Montparnasse. There This cemetery is a mix of old and new graves. There are many French intellectuals, authors, artists and sculptors buried here. There are some unusual looking monuments in the cemetery. We spent some time trying to find some of the more notable graves. It is always difficult to find specific graves. The map available at the front gate really helps out. After some long searching we broke down and got a map from the attendant.
On Thursday we saw a great concert at the Eglise Saint Merri. It was convenient, as the church is just a few blocks from our apartment. The concert was performed by a relatively new group called Note et Bien. They are an orchestra and choir association, and perform 4 concerts a year. They performed an all Leonard Bernstein concert. The first performed the Chichester Psalms, followed by an orchestral West Side Story medley and closed with a choral/orchestra medley from West Side Story. The group was conducted by Alexandra Cravero. They did a nice job on the Chichester Psalms, but it would have been more effective with a large tenor and bass section. The women sounded great, but there just were not enough men to cover all the splits and their sound was often buried in the thick orchestration. The soloists, Stefanie Raffaello, sang the second movement with ease and sweetness. We noticed an add in the program for more tenors and basses. This would be a great group to sing with. They have a lot of potential, and what a great idea to form a group composed of both orchestra and chorus.The orchestra did a really nice job on the West Side Story. I love the complex meters of Bernstein. The conductor was really expressive and gave very clear direction. They closed with the choral/orchestra medley, which was a real treat. It was all in English and their pronunciations were pretty darn good. I was amazed that a group of this caliber was performing a free concert. They are scheduled to repeat the performance at 2 more churches in Paris.
On Friday we decided to visit the Cimetiere du Montparnasse. There This cemetery is a mix of old and new graves. There are many French intellectuals, authors, artists and sculptors buried here. There are some unusual looking monuments in the cemetery. We spent some time trying to find some of the more notable graves. It is always difficult to find specific graves. The map available at the front gate really helps out. After some long searching we broke down and got a map from the attendant.
It took some time, but we finally found Saint-Saen.
This is what I would call "Sweet repose".
Later that night we toasted our good friend back home Sharon.
Thanks for your comm about our concert in Saint Merri, Tom and Keith !!
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Stefanie Raffaello