In brief: 94 tunes, 72 leaders, about 115 registered singers from 8 states and two countries (the United States and the United Kingdom).
But was it a good singing?
The new singing space, Trinity Lutheran Church in Alameda, was wonderful. Now Bay Area Sacred Harp singers can have strong opinions about singing spaces, so there may be negative opinions out there — but I’ll be opinionated, too, and say that negative opinions are wrong. The singing space sounded good: a bright yet warm sound. The grounds of the church are beautiful, so there were lots of nice places to eat dinner outside. The space was big enough to hold all the singers we had today, with room for expansion if we return there next year (last year’s space was just plain overcrowded) — and it was accessible to people with mobility issues. Finally, there was a great kitchen with an industrial quality dishwasher, which made clean-up much easier for those of us on the kitchen committee.
We had a good-sized contingent of singers come down from Washington and Oregon, as well as a good-sized contingent of singers from southern California — visitors are always welcome, but these were especially good voices and especially nice people. We also had lots of fine local singers — regulars from the practice singings in Berkeley, Davis, Palo Alto, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz, and lots of other northern California singers.
Carol and I were the kitchen committee, and I’ve decided that this is just about my favorite job at an all-day singing. What’s not to like about being on the kitchen committee? — you get to lay out all this really good food (and scope out what the best dishes are), you get to clean up afterwards, and during peak allergy season I just don’t want to sing for six hours anyway. Miranda, who is 11, joined the kitchen committee to help us set out the food. Linda from Fresno joined Miranda and I after dinner, doing clean-up in the kitchen, and we all had fun. Miranda and I ran the industrial quality dishwasher (with a 90-second cycle!), and we both had a lot of fun, even though we each got a little wet from the high-pressure dish sprayer.
So yes — it was a good singing.