A Little Night Music Revisited

Max has been practicing with the Jerusalem Acapella Choir once a week for about 4 months now. At least he thinks that's what they are called - the entire rehearsal and most of the songs are in Hebrew. It's done wonders for his Hebrew (he tells me) but it also makes things exciting when he's not sure if the concert is at 6:30 or 7:30 for example. I'm not leading up to a cute lost-in-translation story, I just think it's amazing that he sticks right with it along side genuine Israeli Hebrew speakers.

The choir has about 18 people and they sing mostly ancient choral music, hymns, Jewish songs, and an occasional English/American tune. Last week they had their first concert and it was just wonderful. It was fun for me to see him in his rehearsal before, chatting away with his new friends, as well as on stage again. He remarked that has been since High School that he has sung with a formal choir in a concert (8 years - yowza).

The Man to Max's Right (your left) is Eli (eh-li), the nice Man who gives Max a ride home every week so he doesn't have to endure the long bus ride. The man to the right of Eli is Ofer (oh-FEHR) and he invited us to an amazing Rosh Hashanna dinner at his house a few months ago - there were 7 courses at least. The man to Max's Left (your right) is Amnon, and I don't know much about him except for he kind of looks like Deep Roy. There are women in the choir, just not in the pictures.

The concert was on the evening of December 7th, and I had my first "embarrassed-of-my-gobs-of-technology" moment. I wanted to take pictures of Max close up so I needed my regular lens as well as my zoom lens. And we couldn't let this occasion go by without video taping the event, could we? So the video camera came too...and the tripod. You can't have a sharp super-zoom without a sturdy tripod. I staked out a place in the back of the concert where I wouldn't bother anyone, but as I started to unfold my studio away from home I became so self-conscious! Isn't this something that 30 something Dad's do at their 7 year old's first soccer game? I tried to own it as much as possible, and I don't regret bringing everything because I got great film on top of a few good pictures, but I was glad when I could hide my abundance of image capturing devices and their accompanying equipment. (And you thought I was gadgety before, Aunt Mary!)

Minor embarrassment aside, the concert was great and Max was wonderful. I'm so proud of him for joining this choir - they importance of doing something you love can't be overstated, I think. I have attached a video of a Hebrew Song (...I don't know it's name ) and an English Song (Ride the Chariot) for your listening pleasure. The quality is pretty poor, but you get the idea.

Actually, I am having some uploading problems and instead of pulling my hair out, I'm going to go into my kitchen and make sugar cookies. Hopefully I can post the videos later.