Tuesdays are my busiest days and I basically go from morning to night without a single break – and today was busier than normal because I had to stir into the mix a dress rehearsal for the Tremper H.S. Choir Concert and then whip back to Carthage to catch the last hour of the Christmas Festival rehearsal. In fact, I could not have cut that last transaction any closer. Dr. Dennee said I should be back at Carthage by about 5, so I left Tremper at 4:45 – and as I walked into Siebert Chapel the chimes were signaling 5:00 on the dot and the reader was doing the last two lines of the reading before I had to start playing. So I arrived with about ten seconds to spare – a nice little Christmas Miracle! : – )
In a day which included one wonderful voice lesson after another and several fun radio interviews, the high point without a doubt was playing for the Tremper singers who are performing my composition called “The Winter and the Rose.” What a blast to have a stage full of high school singers singing something I’ve written – singing it very very well – and appearing to enjoy themselves while doing it! It’s the greatest feeling in the world. And the song seemed especially fitting on this cloudy, cold, windy, bone-chilling winter day. . . a nice little interlude of warmth.
It is a blast to watch Polly in action on a day like today. She has to be some strange combination of cheerleader, field general, stand up comedian, guard dog, mother hen, traffic cop, and – oh yeah! – master musician. She is especially gifted when it comes to discipline – because she’s tough as nails and demands focus and good behavior . . . but she has a knack for getting it without long-winded speeches or by casting a terrible gray pall over everything. I think some tough disciplinarians, be they conductors or teachers or coaches, create their discipline so heavy-handedly, as though swatting a fly with a sledge hammer. . . like someone treating the flu with chemotherapy. . . making you wonder if it’s even worth achieving discipline if it’s attained so unpleasantly. Polly has a way of getting discipline in a way that’s firm but funny – or by being firm and fast, so we can all go on with our lives – but she doesn’t make a huge production out of it. Which makes me wonder if some disciplinarians go out of their way to draw attention to themselves and to how tough they’re being. Polly just wants the disciplined behavior itself, with a minimum of fuss. And she gets it. And that’s when the real fun and the best music making can begin!
At a couple of different points today, I was reminded of something that my former student Paul Marchese said to his choir down at Montini H.S. At one point, he said that one has to always sing with joy – even when you’re singing a sad song. No matter what the song or its subject, at the heart of it must be a sense of singing with joy – of being so grateful for the opportunity to sing. Polly has a truly impressive way of conveying the importance of that, even while running a very tight ship. I think of someone else who used to teach at a high school in the area- he will remain nameless – who seemed to take a rather perverse delight in almost terrorizing his singers. They sang well, but I can’t imagine that they sang with a genuine sense of joy. Polly’s choirs do.
I also thought of Paul’s line today as the Carthage Choir was hard at work for Mr. Noble, who is being very exacting in his expectations and still smarting from the poor attendance at Sunday night’s rehearsal. They have a ways to go before things will be exactly where they should be, in terms of having things fully memorized and completely confident- but what was so obviously and almost painfully missing from their performance today was Joy. And at the risk of sounding hokey, Joy is what really allows you to soar. And I know that Joy is right around the corner, ready to bloom again like a Rose in the middle of Winter. But first comes some hard work.
pictured: Tremper singers after finishing a run through of my piece “The Winter and the Rose.”