Ah, look at those cheeks! So young, so fresh, soft as a baby's bottom. I look pretty good too.
The past few Wednesday evenings, my little brother Steve (tall guy above), my niece Sarah and I, got our 'choir geek' on.
It has been an awfully long time since we donned our polyester gold choir robes with the maroon sashes from Columbia High School in Troutdale (home of the Chargers).
I spent some of the best hours of my life in the choir room at Columbia. It opened the year I became a sophomore, and was built to handle the growing population of teenagers in the Reynolds District. It was exciting to go to a brand new school, everything was so shiny, so open to possibility. Those were the days when students were offered a generous menu of options for the basics as well as the classes that would enhance their lives: art and music, earth sciences, gymnastics and poetry.
Those were also the days when the standards for earning a diploma were a little, um, relaxed. See, in a new school of 300-some students, there were just 2 of us who played piano. Marilee Axling, the extraordinary young choirmaster, recruited Mike and myself to be her accompanists. A choir or vocal ensemble of some sort was offered six out of seven class periods per day (unimaginable now), so Mike and I were allowed to part-time attend some classes, self-study some classes, and even skip some classes, to be available for the choirs. In hindsight, I am not sure this was the best idea. I could have used a little more time in gym class, science is not my strong suit and I am a grown woman who had to ask a kid the other day how to figure the diameter of a circle. And yet, I got to play and sing for hours and hours every week.
I sang and played a bit more during a year away at a private Christian college, where I also took a choral conducting class. I was so excited to purchase my white-tipped conducting baton, but never learned to wield it well. I figure it's the same reason I cannot drive a stick shift or play the organ. I like to think of myself as a muli-tasker, but I prefer a looser sense of timing on most everything, so my ability to press the clutch, strike the keyboard and the foot pedals at the same time, or bring the sopranos in on cue just never jelled. But I still found ways to sing, mostly in church choirs and ensembles. And then, a handful of years back, that opportunity took a few turns away from me, and while I am so fortunate to be part of a tiny and beloved band of singers and players at my Episcopal parish, being part of a choir now seems like something I did a lifetime ago.
So, when I got an email from the Portland Symphonic Choir, announcing their "Summer Sings" series, a yearly opportunity for vocal pros and regular joes like me to meet up and sing delicious, challenging, and transformative classical vocal arrangements, I gave myself 3 seconds, maybe 4, to respond, "sign me up!"
I invited my brother and my niece to come along. The PSC website invited singers into evenings spent with the works of Bach, Faure and Handel, held in the care of highly skilled conductors who would walk us through the arrangements with grace and good humor. Each conductor was different, extending to us something from deep inside themselves and drawing out of us the music that simply begged to respond to their passionate direction. My impression from the email was that we'd spend some time each Wednesday rehearsing, and then, if there was time, sing a bit. I was wrong. From the first evening, we were given our pitch and dove right in, a sight-singing boot camp. For an out of practice alto like me it was exhausting. For an out of practice alto like me, it was exhilarating.
When we sang the Bach 'Magnificat', the tempo was so fast I looked around for a seat belt to tighten, I am sure I hit only a few notes per measure, and at one point, my niece and I looked wide-eyed at one another, shrugged and laughed. There was a moment in Faure's 'Requiem', when the basses blew the roof off the joint with their rich and deep 'Hosanna in excelsis!", and I wanted to stand and pump my fist like a groupie at a rock concert. Handel's 'Israel in Egypt', an oratorio with lyrics taken primarily from passages in the book of Exodus, allowed us the opportunity to harmonize about the plagues. I just don't get to sing enough about lice and boils.
I am used to singing alone, or with a small group of other voices. The evening we sang Bach's 'Mass in Bb Minor', the conductor asked the tenors to sit behind the altos. A few bars into the piece, and I had to resist the urge to turn around and ask the nice fellas to "please tone it down a bit, I am trying to sing." And in that moment, I remembered, oh yea, this is how it is meant to be. I'm not meant to sing alone, I need to hear their voices, so I can find my part. And, as it is with community, even though I'm a little rusty, they need to hear my voice, so they can find their part.
I loved looking around the auditorium on these evenings to see who it is in Portland that sings. As you can imagine, every kind of person sat in those chairs: sweet older women in funky scarves and sensible shoes, tattooed hipsters, business-types, pot-bellies and gym-rats. Lots of gray hair and bifocals, lots of students fresh off high school graduation. Soccer moms and single dads. Believers and seekers, the lost and the found and the unsure of anything. Community. Choir geeks. I love being with people who love music. These are some of my people, and I have missed them. I am not part of an official choir at this place in my life, but someday, I hope to be again. And this time, as a singer, rather than an accompanist. I want to stand and sing with my alto section and hear the tenors, the sopranos, the baritones and basses in my ear. A community of choir geeks.
It is recorded in the Gospel of St. Luke, that when Jesus was making his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the crowds were shouting, singing out their words of praise and adoration to God. Some Pharisees, crabby at the unruly melee, asked Jesus if he could possibly, you know, get them to shut up. Jesus looked at them and simply said, that if the people didn't lift up their voices in praise to God, the rocks and stones themselves would cry out.
I am pretty sure, that for the last few Wednesday evenings, near a 200-seat auditorium off Albina in North Portland, the rocks and stones were speechless.
