Slightly overwhelmed

I've suddenly realised how much I have to get done before the party on the 27th.

Not to mention whatever I need to do before starting back at uni.

And I need to learn a whole piece of music (Dvořák's Stabat Mater) by 6th October, for the first rehearsal of the Midland Festival Chorus thing. It's the first time I've sung with MFC, and I'm really looking forward to it and I want to know what I'm doing. Unfortunately I've left it very late to start, so I'll need some serious work to get myself up to scratch. I do have a CD with my part played on keyboard which helps, and an actual recording, but I can't help but think that a recording of a single voice singing the alto part would be much more useful because it would help me place the words properly.

I've spent about an hour and a half on it tonight and familiarised myself with the first (long!) and the second movements which involve the choir. So far I'm liking the piece, it's rather fun (except that the altos have high Fs which I'm not so keen on), even though in general I'm biased against anything that has a lot of solos because I find that many voices sound much nicer than just one (and I get bored waiting until I can sing again).

I'm kind of ambivalent about this music-learning thing. It's the first time I'll have learned a piece entirely my myself, and while part of me is panicking about how much I'm struggling, another part is proud of the improvement I've made with my sight-reading. Pitching is much easier, as well as getting the "feel" for the direction of the music (which helps a lot with the pitching). I'm still struggling with rhythm, but it's better than it was. I guess these things come with work, and I can't expect to be great with only two years of "proper" singing behind me.