I led Carthage Choir rehearsal yesterday while Dr. Garcia- Novelli was away leading the Texas All-State Choir. . . and since I’m the accompanist for the group,  I’m a handy and logical choice to step in for those situations. But one of the older choir members in the room, Nick Sluss-Rodionov (a grad from several years ago who is back to complete a vocal performance degree)  came up to me afterwards to pose one question to me:  Was That Weird?

And the answer is Yes.

He asked the question because just over a decade ago,  I was the conductor of the Carthage Choir-  something that most of the current choir does not even know.  It was just a two year tenure, and I almost always refer to myself as having been the Interim Director of the group-  and most of the time, that seems like something which occurred a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.  And accompanying the choir on a nearly daily basis does almost nothing to rekindle those memories, because my role on the piano bench is so completely different from what it was on the podium (altho’ I was always the one on the piano bench even when I was on the podium as well.)   And even leading the occasional sectional rehearsal also feels like a whole different thing.

But leading a full-blown Carthage Choir rehearsal was – to coin Nick’s word – Weird.  I found myself in a very potent flashback to the fall of 1999 and my first Carthage Choir rehearsal….. excited but scared out of my gourd, wearing a white dress shirt and a fire engine red tie at the suggestion of a retired teacher friend, who said that red was the color of power.  (By the way, I wore pants too.   And shoes and socks.  I wanted to make a good first impression.)   It was so scary- and so exciting to be taking over responsibility of the Carthage Choir, a group which actually shaped a lot of people’s lives-  including my wife’s.

I think as I took the reins of the choir,  I was most concerned that the choir not slide away from the level of excellence they had achieved with their long-time director,  Dr. John Windh.  I saw myself as a caretaker, more than anything,  much as I had back in 1994 when I had taken over the choir just for the spring semester while Dr. Windh went on sabbatical.   (The parable of the three men and the bags of gold comes to mind.   Two of the men took their gold and made good use of it-  but the third man took his bag of gold and buried it in the ground just to keep it safe and untouched.)  And I had certainly been given some gold because it was a big, talented, vibrant group of singers who crowded into that rehearsal room that day.  (I still have a videotape I made of that rehearsal.)

It was only towards the end of my tenure that I realized that what I really hadn’t try to do – and didn’t really know how to do –  was make the choir better than they already were. . . to push them. . .  to draw them to the next level of excellence. I think back to the choir’s spring tour in 1999 – Dr. Windh’s last – in which I came along as accompanist.  One of the things I had looked forward to the most was long talks on the bus with Dr. Windh – learning all that I could from him about the craft of leading a college-level choral ensemble as he had learned it over those many years.  But in fact there was not all that much time for that because Dr. Windh spent most of his time on the bus each day intently listening to the concert recording he had made the night before,  analyzing what had gone well and what had not.  These were all concerts which to my mind had gone extremely well,  and any blemishes were quite inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.  But there was Dr. Windh. . .  on his final tour with the Carthage Choir, mind you. . .   still hungry for the group to sing even better than they were, when most directors in that position would have been content to smile, settle into the comfort of his seat, and enjoy the beauty of Florida and all of the good feelings swirling around this farewell tour.  His last tour was still all about excellence. . . and all about betterment.   And it’s fun for me to remember this aspect of Dr. Windh because I think most of the people fortunate enough to have sung under him or collaborated with him think first of the joy he had in making music and how he nurtured that joy in his singers.  But behind that simple, sincere joy was a burning hunger for excellence.

As I led those rehearsals this week,  it got me thinking back to those two years and what I did right and wrong on that podium.  It’s a complicated question, but here’s the simplest answer:  it probably says a lot about me that in both of the tours I took while I directed the Carthage Choir,  I never once sat down and listened to a recording of a concert in order to figure out what we could do better.  Not once.   I think I was operating under the mistaken assumption that just by singing each concert,  the choir would just naturally become better and better- in sort of the same way that a voice student might mistakenly assume that just by showing up to his or her voice lessons, he or she will naturally become a better singer (as though the simple passage of time accomplishes makes us better musicians.)   But it doesn’t really work that way, and to really become better at anything requires hard work and focus and sacrifice – and a director who is willing to be seen from time to time as the bad guy rather than the buddy.   And because a large college choir is such a complex ensemble- or should we call it an organism? –  it really takes s master on that podium to shepherd them to the next level, artistically.

Why am I writing all this – and conjuring up all of these memories from more than a decade ago?  I guess it’s part of the “weirdness” I felt in standing in front of the whole Carthage Choir again and directing them for actually two rehearsals this week.   For as fun as it was – and for as well as I think I did – it just reinforced for me that the best of my gifts lie elsewhere,,,,   and that it is the Eduardo Garcia Novelli’s and John Windh’s and Polly Amborn’s of the world that really know how to do that, over the long haul.  Which is not to say that I don’t make good things happen when I’m in front of a choir.  I knew what I was doing this week with the Carthage Choir- as well as when I stepped in for Jim Schatzman a few weeks back to lead rehearsal of the Choral Arts Society- or when I’ve stepped before the Tremper choir to lead them through one of my own pieces.  And honestly, my two years with the Carthage Choir included some very special and gratifying moments, and nothing makes me smile more broadly than when a choir alum from those years will post something on facebook and others will chime in with pleasant memories of their own.  I did some things right.    But over the long haul?  I am happy to leave that kind of hard and complicated work to others, with almost no regrets at all,  that I might devote my own best gifts to other arenas -as a private voice teacher,  as a radio interviewer, and yes, as a church choir director,  where somehow my peculiar mix of gifts work so much better.   That’s where I am happiest and where I can make the most lasting difference.  And if I’ve learned anything in my almost 51 years on earth, it’s the importance of being happy and of making a difference.

So yes, Nick, it did feel weird to be in front of the Carthage Choir, leading them in a rehearsal.   But it also felt really good, which is a far cry from the not-so-distant past when to have been called into such a situation would have been downright painful.  But no longer.  Now, what I feel more than anything else is great gratitude ….. that I am a small footnote in the long, illustrious history of the Carthage Choir…..  and that I continue to play a part in this thrilling new chapter in their existence.

pictured above:  Yours truly leading the Carthage Choir in concert sometime in the spring of 2000.  And despite the picture being somewhat blurry,  I can easily pick out many of the singers pictured, such as Jon Decker,  Nick Terry,  Nick Barootian, Kevin Burrow, four of the guys in the front row.  If there is anything I miss from those days,  it’s the great blessing of getting to work with he wonderful young men and women who comprised the Carthage Choir.  I miss that terribly- even if I don’t exactly miss the podium itself.