This afternoon was the homecoming concert for the Carthage Choir, which spent most of January touring Europe under the able leadership of Eduardo Garcia- Novelli. I was their accompanist for most of the fall semester, but did not play for them for Christmas Festival – nor was I along for their trip to Europe. (The conductor asked me if I wanted to, but for a tangle of different reasons – but especially so I could retain the month off from Carthage that I had coming – I was perfectly happy to leave the accompanying to a couple of organ majors in the choir.) It was a very easy decision to make and I felt only the tiniest twinge of regret about that choice I had made. Today the regret was more like a blow to the solar plexus, especially when I saw pictures from the tour. Seeing shots of Wittenburg and Dresden and Prague made me realize how much fun it was to see those places and how anxious I am to go back there someday. The thing is, I would want to go back with Kathy – and I most emphatically would not want to go back if it meant being responsible for anybody other than myself. The next time we go to Europe, it will be just us – unless we’re maybe joined by a couple of our peers. But our days of chaperoning in Europe are most definitely behind us.
Anyway, seeing those pictures made me sad to have missed out on a fun trip – but a far sharper twinge of regret actually came as I listened to the choir sing . . . especially their exquisite performance of Erb’s arrangement of “Shenandoah,” which the 2000 Carthage Choir sang in Europe under my direction. Listening to that, I realized that what i really missed out on, even more than all the tourist stuff, was some great music-making. There is nothing that matches the thrill of singing in a place like St. Vitas Cathedral in the heart of Prague – or singing Schubert in the little church in Vienna where Schubert himself worshipped – or raising one’s voices in a divine space like Notre Dame . . . and when my memories of Europe 2000 start to coagulate around the stuff that wasn’t fun, I really try to shake that stuff loose and think about the music. Because in the end that trip, for all its headaches and worries and stresses, was mostly about making music in those beautiful places. . . and seeing manager Vernon Sell’s motto “music opens many doors” coming true night after night . . . and I’m realizing now that it would have been really neat to have been a part of the music-making which these young people did in Europe. But it wasn’t the right thing for me to do, and I know that had I gone to Europe, I would begin the spring semester feeling like I was 110-years-old. . . which would not be fair to me or to the 22 voice students who deserve my best. So just as I needed to be content on the curb as the bus pulled away, back in early January, so I tried to be content in the audience today as the music washed over me and the rest of us lucky enough to be there.