Why am I doing this?
It’s what Rebekah Cadorette wonders. At home in Port Townsend, translating, rehearsing and repeating, the sign language interpreter has spent many hours readying herself for this Sunday and Monday.
Cadorette conveys songs in sign language for the NorthWest Women’s Chorale, which is about to give two concerts of choral music by Johannes Brahms: at 3:30 p.m. Sunday in Sequim and at 7 p.m. Monday in Port Angeles.
Director Joy Lingerfelt sends Cadorette her music well in advance.
Then the interpreter goes on YouTube to find other choirs singing the songs, in order to practice signing with them.
Once she steps up to join the 24-voice chorale, everything changes.
That’s when Cadorette thinks: “I want to do this every night, for the rest of my life.”
Live music will do that to you, especially when it comes from someone like Brahms.
“He is one of the great composers of the Romantic age,” said Lingerfelt, adding that these two performances may well be the first of these Brahms works on the North Olympic Peninsula.
“Many are not aware that Brahms wrote these songs for women’s voices,” the director said.
Also joining the NorthWest Women’s Chorale for these concerts are Douglas and Jolene Dalton Gailey, playing French horn and piano respectively.
Together, the singers and musicians seek to capture the songs’ emotional changes, “from the depths of desperation to the highest ecstasy in music,” Lingerfelt said.
Sunday’s concert, which will also feature Cadorette’s daughter Acacia, also a sign language interpreter, will be at Trinity United Methodist Church, 100 S. Blake Ave., Sequim.
Monday evening, the chorale will come to Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 301 E. Lopez Ave., Port Angeles. Admission at the door of either venue is $15.
As is traditional, the NorthWest Women’s Chorale will include a sing-along in each concert, added Lingerfelt. This will hold a “special surprise” for the audience, she promised.
Another highlight will come when Lingerfelt and the chorale’s collaborative pianist, Kristin Quigley-Brye, play one of Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances for four hands.
To learn more about the singers, see www.NWwomenschorale.org or phone Lingerfelt at Holy Trinity, where she’s minister of music, at 360-452-2323.
