I gave a couple of fun voice lessons tonight-  one of them to Trevor, the first in months- and it felt so good to be making music again in preparation for another singalong Messiah. The other lesson was with Jan Mohr, a soprano in my church choir – and we were singing through several sacred pieces that fit her like a glove.  Interestingly, the songs all came into my possession because they were in a box of music given to me by the widow of a friend of mine from the Kenosha Symphony Board – Bill Kuessow.  Bill was a great guy, and it turns out that he was a very active and accomplished singer earlier in this life- and I wish I had known that and had asked him about that when I had the chance.  Bill died long too long ago and his wife, Betty Heide Kuessow,  was SO kind to him during his long and painful decline-  and when he was gone, she was anxious that his music collection should end up in the hands of someone who would make use of it and appreciate it.  That lucky someone is Me- and I am so happy that when I take out these particular copies of Haydn’s “Creation” or Mendelssohn’s “Elijah”  I can think of my friend Bill and his kindness and his smile.  Also on my shelf are literally hundreds of books and scores from my former colleague and boss, Richard Sjoerdsma.  I shake my head in wonder when I stop to think of how many different students sang out of these books in the 38 years he taught at Carthage – and every time I take in hand a score with “Property of Richard Sjoerdsma” stamped on the front of it, I say a little prayer that I’m bestowing at least a portion of the wisdom which Dr. Sjoerdsma did down in JAC 131.

Before I had all of this music from Mr. Kuessow and Dr. Sjoerdsma, I also had quite a number of scores from a very precious elderly lady friend of mine named Everetta McQuestion, who was really the first friend I had when I moved to Kenosha in 1986.  She had been a major figure in  Kenosha arts circles for several decades and meeting her was a wonderful way for me to be introduced into the community which was my new home.  Earlier in her life she was quite a fine contralto, and I still remember the night when I got to hear some amateur recordings of her singing various opera arias; I was blown away by the massive, rich sound rolling out of those rickety old stereo speakers.   This soft-spoken woman in her 80s was once able to blow the roof off the house with her singing.  After Everetta died, her daughter gave me her mother’s music. . . and to have these scores and to use them with my students is to be reminded of that great lady and of all I admired about her.

Everetta was a very private woman, in many ways- to the extent that when kathy and I gave her a beautiful leather bound journal for Christmas one year,  it took her many many weeks before she could finally bring herself to write something in it. . . and then when she thought about those words being found by someone else after she was gone, she tore out the pages she had written on and burned them. Knowing that about her, I hope it’s okay to share these next thoughts. . .

Everetta lost her husband Henry in 1959- the year before I was born – and I was so struck by the fact that she had been a widow longer than I’d been alive.  And over those decades,  she very much missed her husband – – – and when she sang certain love songs by the great masters,  she would sing those songs with her dear departed husband in mind.  And I know this because in the margins of some of those songs, she wrote words that said so.  Sometimes it would be as simple as the words “For My Henry” written in her beautiful  handwriting across the top of the page of a Strauss song like “Allerseelen” or “Morgen.”  I’m all but certain that she had no intention for anyone else to see these quiet tributes – but I am so grateful that they have come into my hands.   They remind me of my good friend- of her devotion to her husband Henry- and of how fortunate I was to know her.  And it reminds me that there is more to singing songs well than beautiful tone or eloquent phrasing. It also has to do with bringing the stuff of real life into our singing, to the extent of singing love songs with real people we really love in mind- and also of pouring the authentic joys and sorrows of our real lives into all we sing about.

And that’s why I would much rather have these well-worn scores than pristine new ones – because I find myself again and again remembering the friends of days gone by who once held those very same scores in their hands, enjoying the pleasure and privilege of singing great music.