Ten things I LOVED about the five days I just spent with the Weston Noble Alumni Choir . . .

  1. 1) Raindrops …   One of our pieces,  a gorgeous setting of “Ave Maria,”  had this interesting effect at the beginning in which the sopranos and altos overlap in what the score says is supposed to sound like rippling water.  Sometime during our first rehearsal of that passage,  someone said that it sounded like raindrops, and Mr. Noble spontaneously broke into “raindrops keep falling on my head.”  I am still reeling in wonderment that this master of choral music, this learned man,  knows the lyrics to a pop song by Burt Bacharach!  Will wonders never cease?!?!?

  1. 2)  Strength …  When Mr. Noble found out that I was going to be part of the Alumni Choir this year,  he decided that the group should sing one of my pieces – and I ended up suggesting “Strength,” which I composed some years ago for the Carthage Choir.   It’s a catchy piece and I knew the group would have no problem learning it- and they ended up singing the daylights out of it.  I received a lot of lovely compliments about it, but two stand out in my mind.  A. On Monday, Mr. Noble asked me to introduce “Strength” to the group, and I told the story of the circumstances under which it had been composed.  One of the women in the group came up to me the next day to say that when I got up and started telling my story about the piece,  she just thought I was somebody sharing about a memorable occasion in which I had sung the piece.  She had no idea that I was the actual composer of it!  Then I sat down at the piano and started playing the piece and talking the choir through it, and it started to dawn on her that I was the Gregory Berg whose name was on the cover.  She felt very sheepish about it, but I thought it was cute.   B.  Someone from the choir came up to me a night or two later and made reference to what I’d said about crafting most of the words (about feeling all alone or being far from home) with college freshmen in mind, since it was college freshmen who heard its first performance.  But she said, with tears in her eyes,  “those words have something to say to just about anyone – and even old people know what it’s like to be all alone and far from home.”  Wow.  I thought of that song very differently from that point on.

3) Thighs ….   There were lots and lots of laughs through the course of the week,  but I’m pretty sure that the longest and most gut-wrenching laughter occurred when I was up in front, demonstrating how to manage the jazziness of Gershwin’s “Clap yo’ Hands.”   For a buttoned-up Lutheran like yours truly, I was well out of my comfort zone, but I actually managed to model those first few phrases pretty well.  The trouble came when Mr. Noble asked me to put my music down and sing the first few phrases again, but this time directly to the choir, as if inviting them to join me.  I did okay with “Clap yo’ hands ….”  but already by the second phrase I was making up words. (I think I might have sung “stomp your feet.”)    And when I had ground to a halt, I turned to Mr. Noble and said “well, I knew it was a part of the body” –  and Mr. Noble burst into laughter …. the kind of laughter that leaves you beet red in the face, your sides aching.  And the sight of his laughter made the choir laugh just as uproariously,  and things spiraled out of control from there.  Isn’t that the best kind of laughter?  The kind that follows not from a joke but from the innocent and unintentional pratfalls of life.

4) Sushi …  No, I am not a fan.  As a matter of fact, I am pretty much repulsed by the sight of sushi.  But I had to chuckle when I stepped into the Oneota Coffee Shop yesterday and saw that Sushi was the featured special for the day.  I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that when I went to Luther… a hundred years ago…. nobody in the whole student body would have even known what Sushi was, let alone wanted some!  It’s things like that which make me realize anew just how long it’s been and how much the world has changed since I flipped my tassel in the spring of 1982.

5) Sisters …   For the first three days of my visit,  my nieces Aidan and Anna were around,  and I was reminded all over again of what lovely, lively young women they are – and how incredibly devoted they are to one another.   They are best friends in every way and it’s just wonderful to see two sisters get along so well and take such delight in each other’s company.  Wednesday afternoon they boarded an Amtrak train bound for California to participate in the annual folk music festival known as Oobilation.  During supper the night before,  Anna was joking about how Aidan was going to make her ride with the luggage so Aidan and her two friends would have room to stretch out.  I can think of plenty of sisters (and plenty of brothers, too)  who wouldn’t bat an eye about doing something that unkind to a sibling.  Not these two.  They are unfailingly kind to each other, and also know how to fill a room with laughter and light.  And let me tell you ….. this house has became downright spooky since their departure, and I know that Matt and Randi can’t wait for them to return so this house can feel normal again!  (By the way, I was persuaded to play my niece Anna in tennis- and had my tail whipped, although Aidan was nice enough to say that she’d never seen Anna pushed as hard as I pushed her.  Still, there’s no easy way to comfort a guy who’s just been soundly beaten by his 14-year-old niece.)

6)  Kaj …. I already loved my nephew,  but my love for him quadrupled when he graciously gave up his bedroom for me.  Well, no – my love for Kaj was already through the roof even before his bedroom became my guest room, but I did appreciate how cheerfully he did that.   And I’m glad that during this visit he and I ended up having some really nice time together – including a couple of stints when I either drove him into town for play practice and/or brought him back home.   Kaj is a fascinating kid, interested in a wide range of things and eager to share his excitement.   And what a wonderful young actor he is becoming!   He was one of the headliners in this year’s Nordic Fest Children’s Play and really lit up the stage with his spirited, whole-hearted, fully committed performance.  Kaj does nothing halfway, and that’s especially true of his acting.  What a joy to see him do so well.

  1. 7)   Mabe’s ….  It’s my favorite pizza – but I can’t really say it’s the best.  There are other pizzas that are more distinctive or more carefully crafted – but there’s something about Mabe’s that just says HOME to me.  I start eating it and I am immediately transported back to my Luther days and to the many times (too many times) when Marshall and I ordered Mabe’s Pizza delivered to campus.  (Doing that made us feel like such adults!)   And every time I am back to Decorah, I partake of Mabe’s Pizza at least once and usually more than that.  In fact, I can think of more than a couple of occasions when I would pick up a Mabe’s Pizza on my way out of town, as though eating one last meal of Mabe’s could help sustain that wonderful feeling of homecoming.  Isn’t it incredible how food can transport us back in time or across the miles?   Too bad there have to be calories along with the comfort.

  1. 8) Follies …. Tuesday night is always Follies night, which at a glance might appear to be nothing more than a glorified Talent Show – but it’s so much more than that.  It’s a chance to reveal and celebrate our collective gifts, and this year’s Follies, for all of the hilarity that was part of the proceedings,  was a surprisingly touching and inspiring experience.   There was plenty of hilarity, including a song performed by a group vividly impersonating the world’s worst church choir …. a spirited performance of Rossini’s famous Cat Duet …. some fabulous jokes and stories …  and a hilarious original song by Ellen Rockne as the world’s most bitter and vindictive fairy princess.  But what I will most vividly remember are some of the so-called “serious” performances of the night:  especially Kristen Sanders’s touching rendition of “Scorn not the Simplicity,”  a song sung by the parent of a child with Down’s Syndrome.  (There was not a dry eye in the house.)  My contribution to the night, apart from playing for several acts,  was to sing the song which was my very first public solo at Luther:   “Younger than Springtime” from South Pacific.  It was fun to be taken back to that moment in January of 1979 when I stepped shakily on to the stage of the CFL, barefoot (because we were dressed at that moment like off-duty sailors), and with my big toe stuck dramatically in the air (as Marshall noticed from his place in the audience) and sang this song. Memories!

  1. 9) Banquet ….  Monday evening was devoted to a Mabe’s Pizza party,  but  Wednesday evening was the Alumni Choir Banquet,  and while it’s great fun to gather around that beloved pizza,  it’s also pretty neat to be able to gather in Peace Dining Room, overlooking the gorgeous Oneota Valley,  and partake of an elegant meal on fancy china.    What was neat about the evening, however, is how the polished elegance of the meal gave way to the goofiness of awards. . . and then turned very poignant with the closing remarks of Mr. Noble.   In all the years that I have known him,  I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say exactly what he said Wednesday night.  He talked about what it felt like for him to sit and watch the Follies the night before and to see such spectacular gifts on display …  and how incredibly grateful he was for the privilege of working with such talented people through the years.  He has hinted at this before,  but I honestly think that the immensity of his legacy is fully dawning on him only now …  and one measure of it is when he thinks about the thousands of talented singers with whom he has worked and the spectacular scope of their collective gifts.

  1. 10) Stories ….  I’m not sure anything about this past week was more precious than the many stories we were told.  Many were told by Mr. Noble, of course, but by fellow choir members as well. . . Ellen’s moving story about undergoing chemotherapy and feeling the presence of Mary- Deb’s story about her father’s imprisonment by the Germans during World War II (and how “Softly and Tenderly” will always hold very special meaning for her family)-  and Mr. Noble’s story of how close he came to turning away from music, towards bookkeeping.  (Imagine the world of choral music without Weston Noble in it!)  Right before our concert Thursday night,  April Ulring Larson (one of our altos) told the story of her beloved and remarkable son Ben, a three-year member of Nordic, who was killed in the Haiti earthquake. . . but who could be heard singing from wherever he was pinned in the rubble, singing for as long as there was air in his lungs.   I knew a bit of his story from our dear friend Kris Capel, but had never heard the details of the kind of work he and his wife were doing in Haiti,  exactly where he was when the quake hit,  and of what song he could be heard singing. (It was the “Lamb of God” from setting ten of the Lutheran hymnal. I will never sing that again without thinking of Ben.)  Later, I went up to her to thank her for sharing the story and told her that when I sang my faculty recital back in 2010, I dedicated it to three people who had died that previous year:  my voice teacher, David Greedy ….  a Luther classmate and fellow Nordic member Kathy Hoadley, who died on the eve of her 50th birthday ….. and Ben, even though I had never had the privilege of meeting him.  But the story of how he sang under the rubble touched me very very deeply, then and now.

There you have it ….  Sushi and Stories and so much more.

Pictured above:  Weston Noble gets us positioned on the risers for our first rehearsal on the stage of the Center for Faith and Life.