This past Saturday was Kenosha’s solo & ensemble contest, which for me is part music contest/ part track meet. This year was no exception because I was playing piano accompaniments for (I believe) 21 different contestants. Most were singers for my sister-in-law, Polly Amborn, who’s the choir director at Tremper High School- and I played for several very fine instrumentalists as well- and this year I found myself also playing for several other instrumentalists who found themselves at the last minute in desperate straits with tricky accompaniments and nobody available to play for them. I love that sensation of riding to the rescue, like some piano- playing Dudley Do-Right, although the risk is that you might ride your horse right off the cliff if you overbook yourself and can’t get to everything and everyone. That nearly happened this time around, partly because I committed to playing for a couple of instrumentalists who I mistakenly thought were competing in the Racine competition on the 13th- but who in fact were playing for Kenosha’s contest, for which I was already heavily booked. It left me double booked at 8:32, and that little schedule snafu (a mistake entirely of my own doing) might have screwed up the whole rest of my morning, making me late for each and every thing that came after that and making me the single biggest irritant in the whole contest. Fortunately for me, if not for anyone else, there was another snafu even bigger than mine, involving a mistake with ballots, and by the time that problem was discovered and rectified, every vocal room was significantly late in getting started…. which created enough havoc in and of itself that my little issues didn’t even matter. What really counts is that I managed to get to everything in fairly timely fashion (I didn’t notice any judges and/or contestants burning me in effigy because I kept them waiting) – I managed to hold on to everyone’s music and kept it straight. (My two greatest fears is that I’ll either lose someone’s music- knocking them out of the competition- or get mixed up and start playing “The Vagabond” when the singer is actually performing “I could have danced all night.” Neither of those mishaps would be good.)
What it was all about, ultimately, was the music. . . and I was blessed to be part of some splendid performances, including a couple of spectacular trumpeters, a couple of marvelous flutists, and a saxophonist who performed SO much better than he had in either of our rehearsals. There was also a young flutist who played in their first contest ever who I feared would wipe out in the very first measure, judging from how roughly things went in our rehearsal. But this young player held it together and did a very commendable job. In some ways those performances are almost more gratifying than the flawless ones by the student who’s headed for Eastman. The latter success is all but a foregone conclusion – impressive but without too much suspense – while the former feels like we scrambled past a pack of ravenous alligators snapping at our heels. I would not want to play for those kind of performances all day long, but one of those is good for the cardiovascular system.
I played for some fine singers as well, and I was reminded all over again of how nicely Polly prepares her students for this day. They come in with confidence but never arrogance – and she nurtures them without making them feel like they cannot possibly succeed without her. (Some teachers have this way of creating the wrong kind of emotional tether with their students.) They know what they need to do – and far more often than not, they do it and do it well. And maybe most importantly, the singers from Tremper seem so genuinely excited about the opportunity, while some contestants from other places look more like they’re undergoing a root canal than doing something they love. One of my favorite moments from the day came with a Tremper student who also happens to be a private student of mine, Jacob Beckman. Jacob loves to sing the way Michael Phelps loves to swim, and Jacob especially loves the song we chose for this contest, Handel’s “Where ere you walk.” (In this gorgeous aria from the opera Semele, Zeus is telling Semele- the mortal woman he loves- about all that he will do for her to demonstrate his love.) In his spoken introduction before the performance, Jacob made reference to the fact that he’s a rather shy and unassuming person in real life, so getting to portray Zeus in a song is, in his words, “pretty cool.” And he proceeded to sing the daylights out of this aria, and it was so fun to look around that packed classroom and see looks of admiration on most of the faces- and utter astonishment on the others! And when Jacob walked over to “face the judge” he was asked a question which may have surprised him- Do you like to sing? Jacob replied Yes. And when the judge asked him why, Jacob gave a wide-ranging answer which ultimately boiled down to this: When I Sing, No Matter What Mood I’m In, I Feel Better.
The judge liked that answer and so do I. Simple and True. And in the frantic-ness (that should be a word, if it’s not) Jacob’s words were a wonderful reminder of why we were all there. . . of why we sing in or direct choirs . . . of why we take or teach voice lessons . . . and why in life’s happiest and saddest moments, most of us open up our mouth and heart – and sing !
pictured above: Jacob Beckman speaking with his judge right after his performance.