Monday, October 5, 2009

Students in a psychology class at a Texas university were attending their first class on emotional extremes.
"In order to establish some parameters," the professor said to a student, "What is the opposite of joy?"
"Sadness," replied the student.
"And what is the opposite of depression?", the professor asked another student.
"Elation," she answered.
"And you, young man," he said to a young cowboy. "What about the opposite of woe?"
"Well, sir, I believe that'd be 'giddy-up'."
 
Speaking of Texas, I have a 1998 CD from the Texas Boys Choir titled Montage. The title refers to the wide variety of songs presented here. They tackle patriotic songs, gospel numbers, a French madrigal, a Venezuelan children’s song, a Bach cantata, some cowboy songs from the American west and even Agnus Dei and Ave Verum Corpus.

Apparently there are sub-groups in the choir. Some numbers are performed by the full choir but others are by The Young Men’s Ensemble and some by the Treble Choir.
The young men do a smooth, haunting Shenandoah and the trebles shine on All Things Bright and Beautiful.

Their Adon Olam, the popular Jewish song, is really pretty and I liked Ghost Riders, too.
It’s a pretty good album, all in all.

The guys in the picture here are taller than I’m used to seeing in a boy’s choir, but I hear that everything is bigger in Texas.

Some basic information: The Texas Boys Choir was founded in 1946 as the Denton Civic Boys Choir and in 1957 moved to Fort Worth and was renamed the Texas Boys Choir. They have made more than 35 albums including two Grammy winners. They got a gold medal in Mixed Boys’ Choirs at the 2004 Choir Olympics in Bremen, Germany.

They provide any boy, regardless of socio-economic or ethnic background a structured environment for developing their talent in an accredited academic institution. Along with music they learn self-discipline, self-confidence, decorum, patriotism, and leadership. I got that from their web site.

Composer Igor Stravinsky called the Texas Boys Choir "the best boys choir in the world", but then he had never heard of Libera.

4 comments:

  1. I think the song "Shenandoah" on this album is one of the best. Beautifully done.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I also might mention if you go to the photo site "Flikr" and search For Denton and Texas Boy choirs you will find some very nice pictures of these choirs from the 50's and 60's.

    ReplyDelete
  3. OOPS
    That should be Flickr. Here is the link: http://www.flickr.com/

    ReplyDelete
  4. I enjoyed the Flickr photos, especially the one with the choir in cowboy hats. They all seem to be from the 60's and 70's or earlier. I wonder where the new ones are? Maybe I didn't dig deep enough.
    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete