BY ELIZABETH RIELY
above: The Cyprian Consort (photo courtesy of the Cyprian Consort)
The Boston Cecilia has given a gala every other year in recent memory. This festive occasion, besides being a lot of fun, serves several other important purposes. First of all, the chorus members show that their ability to work together to make beautiful music carries across to organize a fabulous party. Our camaraderie grows stronger. We have learned that the cantando style—spinning our own lines as we sing together in harmony—has application beyond music.
Before the gala, we have been inviting friends and family who have enjoyed our concerts to join us in the merriment of the evening. We have been rustling up an assortment of auction prizes to suit a variety of tastes and pocketbooks.
During the gala, while enjoying sumptuous hors d’oeuvres and dessert pastries along with fine wines, we are hoping to entice our guests and each other to bid on the auction prizes. We hope they will get caught up in the drama of the moment to provide added theatre for us all. Presto giocoso!
We all know that the further purpose of the gala is to raise money to support our music-making, as concert ticket prices cover only about a third of our costs. The gala is essential to Cecilia’s future, and what better way to help than by everyone having a marvelous time. To this end, sponsorship tables for October 19th are available at the Oscar ($5,000), Tony ($2,000), and Emmy ($1,000) levels. Cameo Individual Tickets ($85) are also available and can be purchased online from our website by going to the Gala page, and clicking on this button when you arrive there:
In 2013 our Opening Night gala opens the curtain on a new season as well as a new era. Donald Teeters, Cecilia’s Music Director since 1968 until 2012 and now Conductor Emeritus, will be passing the baton to Nicholas White, literally and figuratively.
As the scenario of the evening unfolds with silent and live auctions, the Cyprian Consort will be our musical entertainment. Our own Jessica Cooper and Thea Lobo, with lute and gamba, will be amusing us with Elizabethan songs. Among them are several from the racier side of the repertoire, tempo amabile leading to amoroso.
Not to be outdone, Miss Piggy, the porcelain pig which Donald Teeters created several years ago, is planning to appear—although she is making porcine remarks sotto voce about this being her last. We hope that at the end of the gala Miss Piggy will lead the curtain calls to a prolonged ovation and cries of brava! brava!