The New Things on Christmas Eve Choir 2009

Almost every Christmas since year 1989, I has always joined a church choir for Christmas Eve Mass. There were so many songs I've learned and known ever since. The classic songs, the popular ones....and of course the regular catholic church songs. Each year, we tried to perform something new, so the choir members won't feel bored have to learn the same every year. This year, however, would be much more unique......I hope, hehehe....

As usual, we had searched and compiling Christmas songs since September. Ideally, the choir should start the prep on October. But this year we had so many engagements for wedding choir, that we decided to concentrate all October for it, while some of us kept on preparing the songs for Christmas. At first, our Coach wanted us to perform two gospel songs, one based on a popular Christmas song: Go, Tell It on the Mountains but using a new composition in swing rhythm. The other one is Jesus, Oh What a Wonderful Child, a fully gospel song. These two songs had caused me a big headache, because I had to translate the partiturs from those tiny dots of notes into numbering notes familiar to the entire members of my choir.

I hadn't finished translating the first two songs, when the Choir Coordinator told me that there would be three more songs needed to be translated. Yikes!!! I didn't have anymore energy, nor time!!! I said. So, in the end, I got help in translating all of those songs....not just the new ones, but also the old ones...hehehe...

Finally, on November the choir could begin the rehearsal. We practised 2-3 times a week to catch up with all of those new songs in a very limited time available. At the final rehearsal last Tuesday, we summed the songs we had to sing tonight. Let's see....there are three songs in old English style (and we have to pronounce it just like the old english way!!!), several classic songs interprated in Indonesian language, a gregorian song with its Latin words, and two gospel songs....hahahaha.....what a mixed up!!!! It should be interesting to know what the congregation think about it....hahahaha...!

Have a very merry Christmas wherever you are!!!