The last several days have been rather easy going, compared to the wall-to-wall weekend just past. Most of my time has been devoted to housecleaning and some preliminary Christmas decorating, plus more television than I should be watching. (Last evening I caught myself trying to choose between the E channel’s “100 most memorable swimsuit moments” and TLC’s “Surgical Implements Left Behind, Part Two.” ) I’ve earned some slumming time after the busiest semester I’ve ever had at Carthage, but still – there ought to be a law against allowing one’s mind to turn to mush this way.
An exciting and fun respite from dusting the furniture and watching drivel on tv was my lunch date yesterday with one of my favorite former voice students, J.D. Strauss. J.D. and I actually go all the way back to his freshman year at Case High School in Racine, when he started studying private voice with me. He was with me for maybe a year and a half before other matters starting pressing in and the lessons stopped. But at some point during his senior year, we resumed the lessons which flowed right into his freshman year at Carthage and beyond. JD has developed a strong and brilliant tenor voice which got him into the finals of two different NATS competitions and made him a valued member of both the Carthage Choir and Chamber Singers. But beyond his singing skills, JD is someone with really crackerjack gifts for organizing events and people – a keen and discerning mind – and a wonderful sense of humor.
I will always an especially soft spot in my heart for JD because of the concern he showed for me in the spring of 2005 when it was announced that directorship of the Chamber Singers was going to be handed over to someone else after I had been at its helm for fifteen years. Most of the members of the group were really upset about that, but JD is the one who actually set out to do something about it – drafting a strongly-worded letter of protest which was sent to the president bearing the names of 18 of the 19 members of the group. . . and speaking out about the matter to whomever would listen. I don’t mention that to dredge up controversies of the past but rather to point to it as an indication of the kind of guy JD is – a doer and a fighter. This is probably why his other major was political science.
It’s political science which has sent JD halfway across the globe to graduate school in Sydney, Australia – and he has come to regard Sydney as the most wonderful city on earth. Of course, JD’s stories about Australia also include horror stories about spiders as big as dinner plates (he’s had three of them in his apartment over the last few weeks) and other such echoes of the Seven Plagues of Egypt. But mostly he loves his life in Australia and I applaud him for taking the plunge and doing this.
One of the most interesting things we talked about was how his schooling is carried out there in Sydney, Australia – and most interesting of all was his outline of the grading system there. It’s a much more nuanced and detailed system than our standard A,B,C,D and F. Especially fascinating is that the failing grade of F, as we would call it, is split up into ten different gradations . . . with things like F: No hope for future passage, or F: Poor Focus on the tasks at hand or
F: Much improvement made- still more improvement is necessary. I love that idea that the basic grade should, if possible, convey some sort of message to the students at hand. . . in the hopes that they can repair the problem and earn a passing grade next time. What a great way to do it.
We talked about plenty of other stuff, but most of it is a blur. It was mostly just SO wonderful to get together. If I remember correctly, JD actually slightly altered his travel plans in order to be back in the states in time for Musici Amici’s December 16th Messiah performance. I don’t expect that he can sneak himself back here for each and every performance, but my fingers are crossed that he’ll end up someplace where frequent visits are possible. JD adds a whole lot more than his big and imrpressive voice to the proceedings. He also brings to it a lively personality that makes everything so much more fun.
pictured: JD Strauss, sitting across from me at Red Robin, home of some the world’s greatest burgers.