This blog entry is prompted by a nightmare I had a few nights ago. Actually, nightmare may be overstating it just a bit, since I think most people use that term to describe dreams which leave you with your heart pounding right out of your chest. This wasn’t quite that frightening, but it was definitely a bad dream. I was at a music contest – sort of a mix of NATS and Solo & Ensemble – and I screwed up twice. First of all, I took my voice student Andrew Scott to the wrong room and we sat there like idiots, just thinking everyone was terribly late, until we realized the error… but by that point Andrew had lost his opportunity to sing – a voice teacher’s worst nightmare. And then my chamber singers lost out on their chance to compete when I badly misjudged when they needed to be at the auditorium. (If I remember correctly, the room where their competition was taking place had been way behind earlier in the day, and I just assumed the room was still that far behind.) In my dream I was just ambling down the hallway, just beginning to think about gathering my singers to warm them up, when I suddenly overheard the head judge in the auditorium next door announcing that the group from Carthage had failed to show and were disqualified- and at that point, I just stopped dead in my tracks, my stomach in my mouth, feeling absolutely awful about my carelessness. (Thankfully, I woke up just as I got to the gym where the choir was eagerly waiting for me, so I was spared the ordeal of breaking the news to them.) This is a teacher’s variation on such classic bad dreams as “walking down the hallway at school and suddenly realizing you’re naked” or “walking onstage and realizing that they’re doing a different play than the one you studied” except that in this dream the misery is more than your own. It’s your students’ misery as well. (Although come to think of it, the sight of me walking the hallways of the JAC naked would cause its own misery.)
What was weird is that I would have this particular dream (and it was SO vivid) at a point in time when I’m not busy with voice lessons or choir rehearsals or music contest, but basically on a break from all that. And then it hit me that the reason I had this dream was almost certainly because I had just played for the spring choir concert at Tremper High School, directed as always by my amazing sister-in-law, Polly Amborn. The concert features four different ensembles (two different treble groups, two different SATB groups) plus a couple of smaller groups- and thanks to budget cuts, Polly was responsible for everything. (There used to be a second part-time choral person at Tremper, but not as of this current school year.) Just keeping all of that together would be challenging enough, but then there were other extra twists like the people selling tickets failing to show up – or the first pre- concert rehearsals having to be moved – and tons of little crises such as forgotten bow ties . . . but Polly stayed on top of it all so crisply and efficiently, never losing her cool, and keeping positive when some directors would be barking and growling. . . and managing all along to make each and every group feel special and appreciated. (Among the many things I appreciate about Polly is how she never phones it in with any of her groups. They all get her full attention and enthusiasm. And because she doesn’t phone it in, neither do they.) And then the concert itself began and all of the pre-concert chaos and craziness gave way to one wonderful performance after another.
And while Polly has exceptional gifts and skills, I know that what she achieves on her concerts is not completely unique. There are choir directors and music teachers all across the country who manage similar feats (Kathy is one of them) and I tip my hat to each and every one of them. There is something incredibly impressive about what they manage to do. . . which I think is the musical equivalent of cooking four separate and complicated dishes on four separate burners, and managing to make it look easy and fun. And may they go on cooking for many years to come.
pictured above: Polly rehearsing with one of her four choirs before the aforementioned concert.