Reflection Post Week 5 - Social Aspects of a Musical Performance

For my musical performance social analysis, I need to go back a bit farther than one year.  I have been teaching virtually for 14 months, and have not participated in an organized music performance for over a year.  The social situation I chose was my students' performance for the Black Diamond Community Christmas Luncheon in December 2012.  My chorus was invited by the social director to perform for 30 minutes at the annual Christmas Luncheon.  The music was generally short Christmas carols and other tunes from our Winter Concert.  We were introduced as "Special Entertainment" but were essentially background music while the attendees had their buffet lunch.

The performers were 18 high school students in my top choir that functions as a chamber choir and show choir.  We came in our concert attire (guys in tuxedoes, girls in black dresses).  There was a stage in the room in which we performed, and the students stood on the stage in two arcs.  Since most of the music was from our winter concert, they had everything memorized.  We had one microphone and one piano provided to us.  The microphone was used to amplify the choir and for soloists to sing.  Because we were essentially background music, the students did not interact with the audience at all, until the last section of the performance which was a Christmas sing-a-long.  The social director has specifically asked us to include a sing-a-long in our program.  All of the people in the audience were in their seats by this time.

Black Diamond is the most upper class community in my county.  The audience was made up of mostly older (60+) wealthy men and women who were members of the Black Diamond community and golf association.  There were about 150 people at the luncheon, and they would applaud politely after each song.  There was no printed program for this event, I would announce each song prior to the choir singing.  The audience members were dressed up, but not formal, as this was a specially ticketed lunch event.  Many of the audience members were happy to participate in the sing-a-long.  As the performance progressed, more people had gone through the buffet line and were sitting down, eating their lunch and watching.  By the time we reached the sing-a-long part of the performance, everyone in the audience was watching us.  They really seemed to appreciate our performance, and I received many compliments from audience members, particularly on how the students were dressed.  I think a lot of them have the image of a typical modern teenager, and they seemed to like seeing the students dressed in concert black attire.