Have an idea for a story?
Marts@theotherpress.ca

‘Epidemic Suggestion’ album review

Harmonious performance from Douglas’
Chorus and Chorale
(¥ ‘Bananagrams’ board game review

And more!

Photo by Analyn Cuarto

Music Department's spring concerts
kick off with ‘Choirs 1n Concert’

> Harmonious performance from Douglas’ Chorus and Chorale

Caroline Ho
Arts Editor

Dew: College’s vocal groups
showed off the singing skills they've

practiced over the past semesters
last Saturday evening at the Music
Department's Choirs in Concert show.
Directed by Eric Hannan, the
concert featured Douglas’ two
performing vocal groups, the Chorus
and Chorale, as they performed a
variety of music from around the
world, including works by Romantic
composers Mendelssohn and Brahms,
20th century arrangements of
traditional American and Welsh folk
songs, and several pieces from Latin
America—showing off the choirs’

 

linguistic as well as choral dexterity.

Unlike the Music Department’s
other end of semester concerts, Choirs
in Concert performances aren't held
on campus, instead taking place at
the Queens Avenue United Church
on Queens Avenue and Sixth Street in
New Westminster. It’s a fitting venue,
since so much choral music has been
written to be sung in congregations,
and the communality of the church
hall lent the music an extra layer
of intimacy and immersion.

The Department’s larger performing
group, the Chorus, is made up of music
students and community members. They
led the evening with several shorter
arrangements of traditional hymns as
well as Cecilia McDowall’s lively “A
Fancy of Folksongs,” made up of four

English folksongs. One of these folk
tunes featured the sopranos and altos,
while another focused on the lower
vocal ranges, allowing audiences to
fully appreciate the complementarity
of all the voices coming together.

The Chorale is comprised of about 15
singers with higher levels of experience
who take on more varied and complex
pieces, and they took the stage in the
latter half of the concert. Perhaps the
most unique piece of the night from
them was Venezuelan composer César
Alejandro Carrillo’s “Crux Fidelis,”
hauntingly poignant with its lyrics
of Christ’s sacrifice. Hannan told the
audience this song has never been
published by the composer, making the
Chorale’s performance a true treat.

Another especially noteworthy

piece was “Dos Rios,” by Claudio Nucci
and Juca Filho and arranged by Vicente
Ribeiro. According to Hannan, it’s the
most harmonically complex piece the
Chorale has ever sung. The work lists
off the rivers of Brazil—yet this simple
premise is impressively intricate in
execution, with the rivers layered onto
one another in dense harmonies that
bring out and build upon the musicality
inherent to every Brazilian river’s name.
The most fun piece, however, had
to be the last: Anders Edenroth’s “Chili
Con Carne,” where the singers jazzily
went through all of the ingredients
and steps to making the titular
Mexican dish, to the amusement of
the audience. This zesty finale was
a lot of fun to listen to—and, from
the looks of it, a lot of fun to sing.

Chairman of the Board: Slippery situation

> ‘Bananagrams’ board game review

Ed Appleby
Senior Columnist

xx

here is shockingly little

potassium in this game.

Bananagrams (2006) is a word-
building game for one to eight people
designed and published by Abraham
Nathanson and his family. In the game,
players grab an assortment of tiles
from a bag and try to make words,
Scrabble-style. Once a player has used
each of their tiles to make words, all
of the players then draw an additional
tile. Words can be broken up and
rearranged into new combinations.
Once all tiles have been drawn from the
centre of the table, the first player to
completely use all of their tiles wins.

If you do not like Scrabble (1948),
you will not like this game. The
gameplay is similar, but the stress of

 

making long, high-scoring words is
replaced by the need to make words
quickly with a limited number of tiles.
All players go at the same time, and it is
difficult to catch up if you fall behind.

Luckily, the game is very short. The
fast-paced nature causes the game to go
by pretty quickly, making it a good filler
game to play while waiting for other
people, or if youre playing with people
who don’t have long attention spans. The
game is also good for players without a
huge vocabulary, as there are no word
scores to worry about and a simple
word is just as good as a complex one.

If you like Scrabble and are
looking for something a little more
fast-paced, this game may be for you.
Its simple rules open it up to players of
all experience levels, and it may be a
good game to pull out around family,
similar to Dominos (c. 15,000) ora
card game like Gin Rummy (1909).

For me, I'd rather eat the tiles.

 

Illustration by Ed Appleby