Monday was a great night in DeKalb, Illinois for the Carthage Choir and director Weston Noble – performing their finest concert yet. But it was a painful night for one of our second basses, Andrew Spinelli. On his way back from the sanctuary to the church lounge (he heard me playing the piano and stuck his head in the door to eavesdrop- so I feel a tiny bit partly responsible for what came next) Andrew stumbled at the bottom of the stairs to the lounge and severely injured his left ankle. I didn’t hear the actual fall or its immediate aftermath, but on my way to my dressing room I walked through the lounge and saw Andrew lying on the floor on his back with one of his feet elevated on a chair. It’s so weird how you can look right at something like that and not immediately process it. Then I looked again and realized- O my God, something’s wrong with Andrew ! That’s when I got the whole story. One moment he was fine; in the next he was in a heap on the floor with an ankle swelling up like Jiffy Pop Popcorn. We were fortunate that there was a nurse at the church who was monitoring the situation and who then called into the local hospital with a full report. Their assessment was that it might be broken and he needed to be brought in for X-rays. So Dr. Dennee, along on the tour for certain last minute needs and the occasional emergency, transported Andrew to the hospital where the verdict ultimately was <<severe sprain>> rather than broken. The best bit of news in all this was that our next concert (Tuesday night) was in Aurora – and that just happens to be Andrew’s hometown. So his parents drove up to DeKalb to retrieve him and bring him home for a good night’s sleep and a day’s worth of mom’s homemade chicken soup- and Andrew’s intention is to sing the Aurora concert. It’s a good thing, too- He has a very sturdy, good- sized bass voice and with another low bass already out with illness this was a harsh loss, even for one night.
I came away newly appreciative of Andrew, who has been such a pleasure to teach – for the no-nonsense, low-key manner with which he dealt with this. I can think of other people who, given the exact same situation, pain, etc. would have been shrieking and carrying on as though life as we know it was coming to and end – or wishing for the whole world to stop spinning so we could all lavish as much attention on them as possible. Not Andrew- he just lay there very calmly, very quietly, without histrionics, very Andrew. . . (You didn’t know that ‘Andrew’ is an adjective? It is now.) That’s probably why / how I managed at first to not even realize that something was wrong.
It turned out to be a fine performance for the choir, and the rest of the low basses came through in admirable fashion. But nevertheless there was a distinct hole in the choir last night- and I look forward to looking up from the piano tonight in Aurora and seeing Andrew Spinelli singing with his colleagues – – – on crutches, with a cane, in a wheelchair, on a gurney, whatever it takes to get him back where he belongs.
By the way, this just happened to be a night when Mr. Noble was conducting from one of the strangest podiums I’ve ever seen. It appeared to be an amalgamation of two podiums sitting on top of each other, on top of another platform – with a metal bar bracing the back – and hardly anything that resembled a step or even a foothold in order for him to climb to the top. (This was a high podium.) With one possible broken ankle having already occurred that night, I was not about to let Mr. Noble stumble off of this podium and break his who-knows-what. So as Mr. Noble came forward at the start of the concert, I was standing at the base of the podium, ready to give him a hand as he mounted it. But he just looked at me quizzically as if asking “is there a problem?” then proceeded to grab hold of the metal brace and hoisted himself up to the top of the podium as though he were Captain Blood on his pirate ship, hoisting himself up to the crow’s nest. Just chalk it up as yet another indication of how this 85-year-old marvel named Weston Noble is as spry as a lot of 45-year-olds I know.
pictured: Weston Noble asking Andrew how he’s doing just before he’s taken to the hospital. Andrew is sitting in a wheelchair that the church had, which made transporting him to the hospital a whole lot easier. The blond woman behind Andrew is the nurse who just happened to be on hand and who was so helpful.