2.5 hours of choir practice, eh? I sing tenor myself. What are you singing for Holy Week?
The schedule is still a little fluid, we tend to rehearse a LOT of stuff, then pick and choose during warm-up. The lineup so far:
Byrd, "Ave Verum Corpus", Morley, "Nolo Mortem Peccatoris," Tallis "O Lord give thy Holy Spirit," Vittoria, "O Vos Omnes", Palestrina "Sicut Cervus", Billings "When Jesus Wept," "Jesus Dulcis Memoria," "Popule Meus," "Pange Lingua" for Holy Thursday, "Ecce Lignum," the Dubois "Adoramus Te", "Vexilla Regis," the "Tenebrae" . . .
He keeps us pretty busy!
I'm an alto who's working hard to extend my range upwards so I can manage the Palestrina cleanly (I'm solid on top E in the treble clef now, which is a change (I mean no squeaking or vocal stop), and I can hit A sharp but it ain't pretty . . . and downwards so I can handle the Morley - it's got two repeated Es (I'm talking about in the bass clef) in the alto line, down an octave in half a measure . . .
For Easter we're doing the Franck Psalm 150, and the Telemann "Laudate Jehovam Omnes Gentes". That one is a HOOT - the altos have a couple of entrances that you just have to pull from nowhere at all - but it's beautiful and a lot of fun to sing.