Sometime last fall our phone rang, and for the first time in at least ten years I heard the dulcet voice of a wonderful guy named Bill Diekhoff.  He was the highly regarded choral director at Park High School in Racine for many years, but I knew him best at Holy Communion.   Before I was hired there as music minister in 1988,  Bill had served as interim director of the senior choir in the wake of John Windh’s retirement — and in a gesture of amazing graciousness and generosity,  he stayed on as a member of the tenor section.  (He had also sung in the choir when Dr. Windh was the conductor – which made perfect sense.  Bill greatly admired Dr. Windh as a musician and conductor.  But for Bill to want to sing under the shakier leadership of a choral neophyte like me made much less sense- and yet he was willing to give me a chance.)  Bill was a treasured member of the tenor section for several years before he retired from Park High School and retired to the Carolinas. . . although it was not complete retirement because Bill eventually began teaching private voice at the collegiate level.  And most importantly,  he continued to sing- and well!

I’m not sure exactly when and why and how he came up with the idea of coming back to Racine to sing a voice recital,  but I was so pleased and honored that he asked me to be his accompanist-  and making music with Bill proved to be every bit the pleasure and delight that I knew it would be. He put together a lovely program with a nice balance of fairly serious classical stuff…. Schubert, Mendelssohn, Vaughan Williams, Donizetti….. with lighter fare like “If I were a Rich Man” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”   He wanted to sing the recital at Holy Communion in our sanctuary,  and it proved to be a perfect space for the program,  and an enthusiastic audience came out that afternoon.  Some of them had been students of Bill’s at Park,  but even more of them were parents of students who had such fond memories of what Bill had done for their children.  There were also colleagues in the audience, including one fine choral director from Kenosha who student taught with Bill (her first day was his first day)  and a few members of Holy Communion as well.

And Bill did not disappoint . . .  singing with great beauty, skill and sensitivity – and at several points creating absolute magic.   (The soft, perfectly spun high notes in the aria from Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers were to die for!)  One especially neat moment was when Bill was joined up front by a certain mezzo soprano for a performance of “Do You Love Me?” from Fiddler on the Roof that brought quite a smile to people’s faces and maybe even a lump in many throats.  Bill could have asked any number of former students or colleagues to join him in that duet, but his first choice was Kathy-  and the sound of those two wonderful voices joined together was heaven on earth.

Perhaps the most special moment of the whole afternoon was when Bill introduced the last piece on the program- a song which he had sung at his very first choral audition almost sixty years earlier.  The choir director for whom he sang it then told Bill something to the effect that there was nothing in music he couldn’t do-  and those simple words of encouragement set in motion Bill’s life of song which in turn led to his distinguished career as a choir director. At the age of 72,  Bill still loves to sing- and still sings beautifully. . .  and in a beautiful gesture recalling that audition from decades earlier,  Bill sang for us that same song – Somewhere over the Rainbow.  It’s a good thing I know that song completely by heart because the tears in my eyes made it all but impossible to read the music in front of me.

Such is the power of a great song – and great singing.

pictured above:   Kathy and Bill singing the final lines of “Do you love me?” from Fiddler on the Roof.

“It doesn’t mean thing . . . but even so . . .

after 25 years . . . it’s nice to know.”