Saturday, October 24
5:20 a.m. – Alarm Goes Off ….. for the first time.
5:47 a.m. – After hitting the 9-minute snooze button twice, I haul myself out of bed. There’s a lot to do before I can be out the door and on my way to Solo & Ensemble at Muskego High School. There are two dogs to feed and music to gather up, plus I have to make myself presentable. Google Maps says the drive will take me 43 minutes, but I am determined to be out the door before 7, in case anything goes wrong. With my first accompanying assignment at 8:00 sharp, I need a bit of cushion for my own peace of mind.
6:55 a.m. – I hit the road, but only after trying out the home remedy suggested by both Sarah Gorke and Holly Anderle for my nagging cold: one tablespoon of Bragg’s Apple Cider Vinegar and one tablespoon of honey combined with 8 oz of hot water. A powerful concoction- and I think I’m even more wide awake at the wheel than I would otherwise be, thanks to it. Whew! It packs quite a punch!
8:00 a.m. – My first person is actually bumped to 8:05, so Waterford’s madrigal choir can go first. They are quite good – and if there weren’t a clock on the wall, one would never guess that it was such an inhospitable time for singing. They sing with sparkle and expressiveness and really light up the room. It’s a great way to start the day. (The judge says exactly the same thing!)
8:12 a.m. – After playing for my first accompanying “client” (in the same room as the madrigals sang) I race to Site Four, where I will be for the rest of my time at contest. Most of these kind of competitions are scheduled this way now – with the accompanists essentially planted in one or two rooms the whole time, to help keep things on time – but honestly I miss the days of running from site to site. It made for a much more varied day (where you get to hear from a wide variety of different judges) plus you get more exercise. The Waterford H.S. students I’m playing for are all very well-prepared (kudos to their director, Derek Machan) and the first of the singers at Site 4, a private student of mine named Matt Davison, blows the roof off of the place with “Non piu andrai.” I couldn’t be prouder.
9:15 a.m. – All goes swimmingly with all of my accompaniments until the very last one – Debussy’s “Beau Soir.” For some strange reason, the judge’s copy is not in the stack of music that Derek left off in the room. (He is incredibly methodical about such things, and we’re still not sure how it walked off.) The rules are unbending on this matter: the judge must be provided a legitimate original of the music- not a photocopy- and the only way to avoid having this young student be disqualified is for me to give up the book I was going to play from … and play the song without music, from memory, as best I can manage it. Some of the more standard songs I have been playing for decades, literally hundreds of times by now, and I can play them by heart without much fuss. This is trickier and my effort is far from perfect- but it gets the job done, and the student in question doesn’t let anything I play throw her for a loop.
9:26 a.m. – Midway through my accompanying stint, I get a text from former student Alyssa (Baylen) Turner – who is at the same contest as a judge. I track down her room and settle in at the back to watch her in action. It is SO strange to see a former student suddenly on the other side of the table – especially when they offer up such poised, perceptive insights. I’m not sure how long Alyssa has been judging (I’m pretty sure it’s not been that long) but she already has the assurance of a veteran. She also judges with a compassionate heart- and that’s particularly evident with one of the students who sings for her who appears to be riddled with almost crippling nerves- and whose favorite means of coping appears to be talking! Alyssa is admirably patient and helps to settle her down. I wish all judges were as kind as she is.
9:50 a.m. – On my way out of Muskego, I finally connect with my wife, who is out of town. It’s so nice to hear her voice, even if it’s just for a couple of minutes.
10:05 a.m. – Since my route back to Racine takes me to the intersection of 7 Mile Road and I-94, I decidedto pay my first visit to something called the Seven Mile Fair ….. despite my wife’s repeated insistence that it would be a gigantic disappointment to me. Somehow in my mind I pictured various stands where people would be selling vintage comic books or used neckties and I imagined myself walking out of there with bags of great stuff. WRONG. It was one big flea market/junk sale that kind of made my skin crawl —- and the outside vendors were even worse. By the time I was done, I am practically racing back to my car and vowing never ever to disregard my wife’s advice again.
11:50 p.m. – Ahead of my next engagement, I let the dogs out into the yard – and when Ellie seems to vanish, I go running out to see where she is … and promptly step right into a pile of you-know-what. And it’s an especially pungent pile of you-know-what, but I don’t have another pair of black shoes available to me. So I take off the offending shoe, grab a scrub brush, turn on the hot water in the laundry room sink, and proceed to frantically clean off the bottom as best I can. (I don’t want to meet an old school mate and smell like I just slopped the hogs.)
12:15 p.m. – I swing by Carthage in order to rendezvous with a friend from Luther whom I had not seen since I graduated in 1982! Barry Hoff was a friend from Nordic Choir and I remember him being one of the most genuinely nice and solid guys I ever knew there. (Mr. Noble loved him.) But because he’s one year younger than me, he and I have never been back to the same homecoming festivities. (Our respective big reunions fall a year apart from each other.) So this chance to reconnect was too good to pass up. Barry now lives in the Hortonville/Appleton area and has an exciting job with Harley-Davidson … and it was so fun to hear about his work with them (doing virtual prototypes of their new designs.) By the way, he is visiting Carthage with his younger daughter, who is making the rounds of potential colleges. We share lunch in the cafeteria and then I take them on a quick drive along Kenosha’s lakeshore. I only wish that it had been a perfectly sunny day so they could have seen Carthage and Kenosha at their most beautiful.
2:30 p.m. – My next stop is Indian Trails High School, and dress rehearsal for tonight’s performance of John Rutter’s Mass of the Children. Ahead of that rehearsal, however, I am practicing both with the top choir at Indian Trails as well as the top choir from Nash Elementary School, since I’ll be playing for both groups on tonight’s concert. The director of the Nash choir, Stanley Bochat, student taught with Polly at Tremper, so I had seen him in action before- but never with elementary students. He is absolutely great with them, and his kids sound terrific. (and of course they’re darling.) The Indian Trails Chorale are in fine form as well, and their director, John Choi, has picked out a couple of pieces that are a blast to play!
3:30 p.m. – After a quick run to McDonald’s for a light lemonade, I’m back for a run through of the Rutter with students from five different school choirs crowded on to the risers- and a stage full of orchestral musicians as well. It’s a complicated score and things do not come together very well, but Mr. Choi is keeping his cool and making the best of it. He seems fairly confident- and also comfortable with the reality that it won’t be perfect. I’m far from my best form, but I’m miles ahead of where I was just a couple of days ago, when I was actually talking to various people, trying to figure out who might be able to step in for me. As it is, I’m croaking out my part not too terribly- and soprano Nancy Davis, as always, is sounding terrific. As Tim Gunn says, we’ll make it work.
5:00 p.m. – I spend a few frantic minutes trying on every black suit jacket and sports jacket in the house- hoping to find one that looks good and fits me; most, I’m happy to say, are way too big. (Kathy bought me a beautiful charcoal jacket very recently, but I don’t think it’s quite formal enough for this kind of performance.) I finally dig one out of the guest room closet that fills the bill. It’s a relief.
5:45 p.m. – Along with supper, I’m also indulging with a triple dose of the vinegar/honey cold remedy – and I must say that it’s having a potent effect. What Liquid Plumber is to stopped up sinks, this concoction is to chest and sinus congestion.
6:10 p.m. – Just as I’m getting ready to head out the door, I make the mistake of checking email and find an very unexpected message from someone who is in charge of repertoire clearance for an upcoming voice competition- and there is a serious issue with the repertoire I’ve submitted for one of my students. Bad news never comes at a good time, but the timing of this is really terrible. I sit down, take a deep breath, and begin typing a response – fearing that if I don’t say something then and there, my head will explode during the concert when I should be focusing on Mr. Rutter’s lovely music. By the time I finish the email, grab my coat and music and get behind the wheel of the car, it’s 6:30 …. and the concert starts at 7. Never a dull moment.
7:00 p.m. – There’s a great crowd for the concert, which is in Indian Trails High School’s gorgeous auditorium- one of the loveliest performance spaces in southeastern Wisconsin. And the Nash Elementary Choir gets things underway with a really superb performance. (My favorite piece of the three they sing is a fun Dutch folksong called Sarasponda. I have no idea what any of it means, but they do a terrific job with it.) The Indian Trails Chorale follows them and they sound great. And for me, it’s a privilege to play their gorgeous Fazoli grand piano – one of those amazing instruments that almost seems to play itself, so light and elegant is its touch.
8:00 p.m. – Actually, I’m not just sure what time it is as we’re starting the Rutter “Mass of the Children,” but we are underway, and it’s going ever so much better than it did at this afternoon’s rehearsal. For me, singing this piece brings back delightful memories of the performance with which I was introduced to this exquisite masterpiece: a performance at Carthage conducted by none other than the legendary Weston Noble, for Carthage’s spring choral concert. I got to be the soloist on that occasion, alongside Sarah Gorke, and it remains a mountaintop experience in my memory. A year or two later, I soloed in it with the Weston Noble Alumni Choir at Luther (with Arlene Sparks as the soprano soloist) and that was a tremendous thrill as well. Singing this piece tonight reminds me that one of the neatest things about a great piece of music is that you are not only experiencing it in the moment – but also reconnecting to your past encounters with it, which only deepens the joy. It’s great to be standing alongside Nancy Davis tonight, with a stageful of fine orchestral and choral musicians behind us, bringing this score to life once again. And when those children’s voices ring out with “Little Lamb, who made thee?” it’s all I can do to keep the tears from flowing. It’s a wonderful performance, all in all, and afterwards I’m relieved when I run into a fine young trumpeter named JR Buzzell (whose sister played in the orchestra) and he has only the most enthusiastic things to say about what he just heard. So evidently it didn’t just sound good to us- but it also sounded good to them.
8:50 p.m. – On my way home, I swing by Jimmie John’s for a #12 served as a Unwich (that means wrapped in lettuce instead of on a bun). It’s always weird right after you’ve had a mountaintop experience to step back into the real world, and stand among people who have absolutely no clue what just transpired right down the street from them. It makes you feel even more privileged to have been a part of it.
10:20 p.m. – Bed time. The end of just another day.