José Antonio Miró Sempere (president of the Mariola Choir)
The day 23 April last year 2010 the sung Mass was premiered, written and dedicated to our excellency and patron saint St. George.
I think that for both me and any member of the Mariola Choir it was an experience we will not forget.
The project, which was proposed to us by the Brotherhood of Sant Jordi in September-October of 2009 and in moments of low activity in our choir, it represented a real challenge; it was the great project of the Board of the Brotherhood, that they had been pregnant for several months and that it was time to get down to work.
After the president of the Brotherhood proposed the project to us, the most important, for our Board and our directors, it was to have enough voices to give body to the songs that our companion and friend, Francisco José Molina Rubio, he had been creating and writing, using biblical texts appropriate to the liturgical moments of the Mass.
A joint invitation was issued by the Choral Brotherhood to the nearly four hundred people of whom there is evidence, although we know that many more have passed through the heart, as it has always been called, in the forty years that precisely in the 2010 we complied, so we can consider this event as a great birthday present.
There was an affirmative response from some sixty-five people, most of whom were former members of the choir and the rest were newly incorporated, enough to tackle this project.
At the end of October, a great deal of work began for the coordinators who would assemble the eight sung pieces that make up the mass and that were the hardest part of the whole project.; Miquel Payá, Salvador Calero, Paloma Martinez, Mary Joseph Pont, Mayte Vilanova i Carlos Moisés Miró, they were in charge of studying the scores and making voice recordings of all the songs, because they helped each member of the choir and could hear them at home, being all the work supervised by the composer of the mass, Francisco J. Molina; voice rehearsals were performed to the extent that the composer was giving the material already practically finished for rehearsal and final revision, to the extent that the songs were assembled in part; joint rehearsals were regularly scheduled where we already listened to the different songs, feeling everything
the set of voices with which we became familiar and excited more and more at the premiere of the Mass.
It's time to do the first general rehearsals with the director who was to lead the Mass of Sant Jordi and who was Rafael García Vidal. Rafa was in charge of putting together and giving the expression that each liturgical chant required; under his baton and with the accompaniment of the group of musicians of the Societat Musical Banyeres de Mariola, the mass was ready for the premiere.
Arrival on the eve of Fiestas and what the party of the days represents 21 i 22, the last tips are given to all the members of the Choir who would participate, especially the attention that had to be paid to the voices so that they were in optimal condition on the day of the premiere..
Day 23 d'abril, Mass of St. George; in the course of this one the songs that compose the different liturgical moments are listened to; the components of the Chorale, reaffirmed in the direction of Rafa García, we were experiencing the satisfaction represented by the excellent result of more than six months of intense work.
la consequ&’776;final essence of all this, it will remain in the memory of each and every one of us and of those who attended the major mass and also, a week later, at the Octavari concert in which all the songs were also performed in a more relaxed way and that, by the comments of the attendees, we think we can be satisfied with what has been done.
From these pages I want to express in my own name and in the name of all the members of the Choir, our thanks to all the people who made the success of this premiere possible and, especially, to the president of the Brotherhood of Sant Jordi and to all its Board for the confidence shown in offering us the possibility of launching "his project", a project that we and our descendants will enjoy and care for as a cultural heritage very much our own. I would also like to thank the immense effort that the fact of conditioning in a space meant for the whole Board, practically insufficient, the place to properly and comfortably locate the seventy people in the choir.
I also want to appeal from this holiday program to all those who like choral singing, because they know that our doors are open to everyone and that they can be part of us. And my wish for all, happy holidays of Sant Jordi.
