When the invitation came early last year from Waterford High School director Derek Machan came for me to compose a new requiem for him and his choirs, I can’t say that I leapt at the chance or charged forward with confidence. The fact is that I have never written anything remotely resembling a full fledged Requiem setting (still haven’t) and was not about to agree to something where I might crash and burn. (Nobody would have enjoyed that – me, Mr. Machan, or the singers.) But once he had agreed to a slightly scaled down project, where I could pick and choose those sections of the requiem with which I felt fully comfortable, there was no turning back. The initial ideas came fairly quickly, but the next step of fleshing them out and getting them down on paper in coherent fashion was a slower and stickier process – and this current school year actually began with not much more than fuzzy ideas and a lot of blank manuscript paper to show for my efforts, aside from the main melodic ideas which I wrote on the plane ride to Orlando, Florida this summer. (Come to think of it, I also conceived one or two major ideas while walking around the grounds of Sea World. Isn’t it strange how the where and how and why of inspiration cannot be charted or scripted?) I finally had to devote some late night hours to the project in order to finally get something down on paper from which Mr. Machan could fashion a score to distribute to his students. I don’t know why 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. is the time frame within which my creative juices flow most freely, but that’s the time of night when this work finally took shape.
I recently blogged about the exciting and inspiring experience of visiting Waterford High School for the first time, meeting the singers there, hearing them sing my Short Requiem and fielding their questions about the work. It was an amazing and utterly exhausting day – exhausting in the very best sense of the word. But after that, for a variety of reasons, I had no more contact with any of the students until Sunday the 6th . . . the day of the first performance. Yikes! There was a full dress rehearsal the day before, but that was while I was still in Portland, at the National Opera Association convention- so all I could do was send them happy thoughts and hope and trust that all was coming together under the expert guidance of Mr. Machan. And indeed, when I walked into Waterford H.S. that Sunday afternoon, that’s what I found – a well-prepared, excited choir, eager to sing the work for the public.
I found more than that, too. That was my first opportunity to meet a fine young man named Jonathan Nelson, who was the clarinetist for my piece. I was told her was an amazing young musician, but I was still a little apprehensive to be hearing him for the first time less than hour before it was time to actually perform the piece. But he was indeed a superlative clarinetist- and a nice young man besides, and our brief run-through went exceedingly well. Part of what made me especially grateful for that was the fact that the last movement of the piece is in B major- which means that the clarinet part had to be written up one whole step..which makes it C-sharp major, 7 sharps, the toughest of any “sharp key.” But he played it accurately- and also very musically…. which was especially important since it’s the clarinet that was quoting “Jesus Loves Me” and “Jesus Loves the Little Children” in a memorial gesture for the children killed in the Connecticut school shooting. If that had been handled by an inexpressive player just chunking through it, I would have been terribly unhappy. But young Mr. Nelson could not have played more tenderly and gently, and I felt very much indebted to him… and to his mom and dad, who happen to be the band directors of the Waterford middle school and high school, respectively. I’m sure they played more than a small role in his careful preparation for this performance. And his performance mattered a lot because the piece is dedicated first and foremost to Kris Novaeus, the choir director at Union Grove High School, who also played clarinet. So every note of that clarinet part was written as another way to honor Kris’s memory- and Kris’ sister and father, who both attended Sunday’s performance, deeply appreciated all that the clarinet added to the beauty of the piece.
For the first half of the concert, I got to sit in the audience and listen to the combined women’s choirs sing another brand new piece, “Sirena.” That is, I would have sat if there had been a seat left open. The good folks of Waterford turn out for choir concerts the way other communities tend to turn out only for football games. Every single seat of their 500-seat auditorium was filled, so I was back in the standing room section, enjoying the women’s performance of this intriguing work which combined voices with some very busy percussionists.
And then, after a relatively short intermission, it was time for my Short Requiem, for which I played piano. (I think I would have been an absolute nervous wreck if I had been in the audience. I am very grateful that Mr. Machan still allowed me to play piano for the performance despite the fact that I would have to miss the dress rehearsal.) And I am happy to say that all went well. . . and that the second performance the following evening went even better – almost perfectly, in fact. By the way, you could tell that I was nervous because I used a page turner- something I almost never do. I prefer to keep control of that myself, but did not want anything to go even a little bit wrong. I wanted every inch of my attention to be given to playing well, following Mr. Machan’s direction, listening to the singers, and drinking in what i knew would be a powerful experience for me. And indeed it was! I can’t get over how lovingly and beautifully the students sang my piece. . . and only after the fact did I realize, once I had asked Kathy to confirm the fact, that they had memorized the piece. It was only about 12 minutes long, so it’s not like it was the equivalent of memorizing the Bach b minor Mass- but still I felt so honored to think that all of those students (some 200 singers in all, if I’m not mistaken) had worked to commit the piece to memory. I was touched.
(Speaking of touched, I was really touched not only that Kathy came – but also one of my Carthage voice students, Chase Tonar, as well as maestro Eduardo Garcia-Novelli, the conductor of the Carthage Choir. So in what otherwise was an audience of complete strangers, it was so nice to know that there were three friendly faces out there.)
Monday night, which was the second performance of the piece, Mr. Machan gave me a couple of minutes before the concert to say something to the choir, and I took the opportunity to tell them about one of the most moving experiences I had the day I walked into the Union Grove High School choir room to rehearse with the choir for the funeral of their choir director, who had just been killed three days earlier, and whose funeral was coming up two days later. I almost immediately noticed that hanging on the blackboard of the choir room were several very large homemade sympathy cards, each of which was signed by dozens and dozens of Waterford High School choir members- many with very personal and heartfelt expressions of sympathy and encouragement. And one of the themes that was there again and again was “keep singing.” I don’t mind admitting that I cried as I looked at those cards, thinking that Waterford High School’s choral program had some very special students in it. Knowing that, I found myself hoping that I would someday have the opportunity to meet some of them and have the chance to work with them. And now I have, and it’s a privilege and joy I will not soon forget.
One more thing… and thank you for reading this far, by the way… When the performance was all done, I was struck by how many people thanked me for writing the piece. And while I appreciated each and every parent who said that to me (because, frankly, not too many parents think to do that) I was especially touched by all of the students who thanked me – because it gave me a chance to say, in turn, thank you for singing the piece so well and for being so excited about it. After having that exchange at least a dozen times, it started to dawn on me that maybe the very best moments in life are when we find ourselves thanking each other, when our thank you’s pile on top of each other. “Thank you for writing this piece” – “Well, thank you for singing it (or playing it) so beautifully.” . . . . “Thank you for joining me on the morning show.” – “Well, thank you for having me and for reading my book so attentively.” . . . . “Thank you for this lovely party.” – “Well, thank you for being here and helping to make it so much fun.” . . . “Thank you for letting me cry on your shoulder and for just listening to me.” – “Well, thank you for trusting me enough that you would open up to me like that.” . . . “Thank you for being my teacher and for helping me be a better singer.” – “Well, thank you for being my student, for working so hard, and for taking the time to say thank you. It’s students like you who make me very glad that I’m a teacher.” And on and on. When we are a blessing to each other, and sincerely appreciative of that blessedness – well, that’s about as close to heaven on earth as any of us get to experience in this life.
pictured above: Jonathan Nelson, the clarinetist for the Requiem, warms up right before we began Monday evening’s performance. Just some of the 200 singers crowded on the risers are visible in the background. Jonathan played the clarinet part of my Small Requiem SO beautifully – and afterwards took the time to thank me for composing the piece. By the way, I had an amusing exchange after the concert while talking with Mr. Machan and some concert goers. I said something about how early in the process, Mr. Machan had said that Waterford H.S. had “a hotshot clarinet player” for whom he wanted me to write an obbligato part. To which Mr. Machan firmly said “I never called him a hotshot!” I chuckled about it at the time, but now I realize what he was getting at; Jonathan is a fantastic clarinet player (probably the best of his age that I have ever heard) but he’s quiet and gracious and just the opposite of the stereotypical “hotshot” virtuoso who assumes that the universe, musical and otherwise, revolves around them. Not Jonathan. Not by a long shot.