Christmas Oratorio Performance

Friday night saw the choir's performance of Swamiji's oratorio, Christ Lives. The Palo Alto choir was joined by various folks from the Village, including Ben on cello, Bhagavati on flute and singing alto, and Ramesha singing tenor. I'm surely missing others. It was a huge group — people just seem to come out of the woodwork for the Oratorio — and it was marvelous to get to sing in the middle of it. I'm hoping it was at least half as much fun for the audience as for the performers, and judging from the comments I heard, it was a very powerful experience all around.

Shanti observed that a lot of the singers, especially the soloists, did an excellent job of conveying the meaning of the songs with their faces, and not only through the words. (And, as Dambara put it, singing is about communication, after all.) Visiting audience-member Betty Lue remarked that "there was more Truth in this telling of the story" than you usually hear or feel in other renditions of it. For myself personally, this was my first experience singing in the Oratorio, and as soon as it was done I was ready to do it again.

(If anybody has any photos of the performance that they'd like to share, please let me know. I haven't been able to track any down yet.)