This spring semester, I joined the MSU Choral Union, a group of mainly older adults who love music. Rehearsals were only once a week for less than two hours, so I thought it was a luxury I could afford. We ended up performing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Faure’s Requiem. I had not been in a co-ed chorus since middle school, so I had forgotten the wonderful feeling you get when you bring together different voices in harmony.

I am a pitch-perfect, wide-range singer but don’t have a very beautiful voice, so being part of a chorus actually suits me very well, and learning a new language through song is so interesting, the way the Latin rolls off your tongue like a musical seviche. Although I didn’t quite do my homework and translate every word, the requiem was an emotional experience, as the lyrics seemed to relate to my own “prelim hell” and all I could ask for was to be delivered into paradisum. If you have never heard Faure’s Requiem, I encourage you to do so. Here is one video of the National Chamber Choir of Armenia I found on YouTube.

Faure Requiem