Monday, April 7, 2008

somewhere, somehow

One of the big songs from the first half of the Gay Mens Chorus of Los Angeles show this weekend was a medley of three songs each with the word "somewhere" in the title: "Somewhere Out There", "Somewhere" (from West Side Story), and (of course) "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." It's a lovely piece and an ingenious medley that interlocks all three songs.

Unfortunately, Thursday evening, the night of the dress rehearsal, while we're on stage running through the concert, our director tells us that the estate of one of the composers (I won't tell you which) had refused to give us the rights to use their song. So we were stuck with a three song medley, of which we couldn't sing one of the songs. Well the show must go on, so we ran through the song simply leaving out that particular song whenever it came up resulting in a much less impressive, but legal, number.

After spending all the next day on the phones we did finally get the rights just before the show on Friday and sang the full song as written.

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