It was just over a month ago that about a hundred singers from Carthage had the amazing pleasure and privilege of standing on the stage of one of the most beautiful performance halls in the world – Orchestra Hall in downtown Chicago – and singing a concert that brought the audience to its feet.   It was an incredible and inspiring night,  and I felt tremendously fortunate to be a very small part of it.

I also must admit that when I first heard about the idea of doing this,  I did not do cartwheels.   The proposal, which came from our department chair, was that on Monday night, December 5th,  the day after our Christmas Festival performances had concluded,  we would take some of our musicians down to Chicago and perform some kind of concert on the stage of Orchestra Hall.   He was very excited.  Me?  I thought it sounded like a complicated and risky venture that would also make an already taxing time of year for our students even more so – and I remember wondering who was likely to come to such a concert.  I remember sitting in that meeting (I think it was brought up at our summer retreat) and waiting for my colleagues to voice the same serious reservations that I had about the idea.  But instead,  it was greeted with excitement and enthusiasm.  Yes, there were some questions raised as well about how to do such a thing logistically- as well as how to pay for it (renting a place like Orchestra Hall is expensive, to say the least) but by and large everyone was enthusiastic about the proposal …  and I decided that if all of these intelligent people were willing to let this happen,  I would raise no objection. But even as I cast my vote for the proposal to move ahead,  I had fairly serious doubts about whether this was worth doing.

Well, I’m not so proud that I can’t admit that I was wrong about this.  Completely and utterly wrong.   Carthage’s Orchestra Hall venture proved to be a stunning, thrilling experience for all of us – and I could not be happier that we did it.  But more important is that our students were just as happy that this audacious idea had been undertaken and that this spectacular concert took place.  How lucky for them that the rest of the music faculty was so much braver than I was!

As we boarded our bus Monday afternoon for our trip down to Chicago,  I expected to see a bus full of tired and grumpy students, dragging after a taxing weekend of three Christmas Festival performances on top of all of the stresses that come at semester’s end.  But there was actually quite a lot of excitement in the air, as though they had at least a vague notion that they were about to experience something special.

As we finally disembarked from the bus and walked into the front doors of Symphony Center,  we were greeted by hearty, friendly security personnel who could not have been warmer or more welcoming.  I couldn’t help but think back a few years to when the Carthage Choir sang at Carnegie Hall. Their staff treated us like we were unshaven hillbillies crashing a fancy tea party – or thugs who were planning a big heist.  The folks at Orchestra Hall, by contrast, welcomed us as though they were genuinely thrilled that we were there.

And then we stepped into the auditorium – and suddenly I understood why we were there and why this had to happen.  We were giving our students a priceless opportunity to stand on one of the world’s great stages and sing in a glorious hall.  What was I thinking?  How could I not have understood how great this would be?!?

Because I was playing piano for only one of the Carthage Choir’s pieces, that meant that I got to spend most of their rehearsal time just taking in the scene and listening to their sound roll out in that inviting acoustic.  I’m quite sure I’ve never heard the choir sound more beautiful- and it’s not because the acoustic of the hall were creating some sort of sound that wasn’t really theirs.  It was that the room actually caused them to sing more beautifully than they had ever sung before.   It was extraordinary to experience that as a listener in the hall – and I think they could sense the same thing.   (I’m sure the gifted singers of our Women’s Ensemble experienced a comparable joy when they got to rehearse there a few minutes later.)

As I walked around that stage,  I found myself thinking back to the first time I attended a performance there.  It was 1985 and it was a concert performance of Act Two of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde with Johanna Meier and Rene Kollo.  I can’t say that I remember very much about it except that I was in the very very back row of the hall – but it was as though the singers were three feet away from me.  (And they were not singers with especially large voices.)   Standing on that stage and gazing up to the very back row of the top balcony,  I suddenly realized what an acoustical miracle I had experienced over thirty years ago – and what an amazing place Orchestra Hall is!

We had to be at Orchestra Hall for a thirty-minute onstage rehearsal (I believe 3:30-4:00)  but then we were free to do whatever we liked until concert time, which was 7:30 – which for me was like being set loose in a candy store.  I ran first to the venerable old Fine Arts Building and paid a visit to my favorite used bookstore in the city – complete with a cat for atmosphere.   There was also time for a quick visit to the German-style Christmas Market, which sells all kinds of gifts and food from various European countries.  There was also time to see the gorgeous Christmas tree in the heart of Macy’s Department Store and eat a delicious dinner at the Berghoff, my favorite Chicago restaurant.

As I returned to Orchestra Hall at about 7:15, it was great to see some familiar faces in the lobby, including the parents of my voice student Austin Merschdorf, who had driven all the way from Waukesha, and other parents as well… plus several college trustees and staff members who were there to support us.  The biggest relief, however, was to look out in the audience and see hundreds of strangers there.   They were strangers to us but in fact they were loved ones of the students from the three Chicago-area high school choirs whom we had invited to sing with us on the concert.  And what ensued was an absolutely wonderful celebration of the unique joy that comes with singing.  Each guest choir displayed its own particular kind of excellence,  and I was especially thrilled to see my former voice student Dan Ermel up on that stage, conducting one of the guest choirs and acquitting himself beautifully.

When the Carthage Choir finally took the stage, it was as though they had been spurred on by all of the terrific singing that had come before- and they delivered a performance that was truly stupendous.  And I got to be on that stage as all of that magnificent sound swirled around me.  And by the way,  the Steinway grand piano I played was one of the most beautiful instruments I have ever played.  Shortly after our rehearsal finished up,  I asked one of the staff managers – jokingly – if that was one of their “junkers,” thinking that they probably had one piano for guests like us and another piano …. an even better piano ….  for when a world class concert pianist like Emmanuel Ax comes to play with the CSO.  Actually, I was told,  they have a German Steinway and an American Steinway and each concert pianist tries them both out before choosing the one they prefer.  “You’re playing the American,” the guy said, “which is the one that ‘Manny’ always plays.”  ‘Manny’ is Emmanuel Ax.  You’d better believe that as I took the stage that night and began playing the introduction to Paul Johnson’s lush arrangement of Silent Night,  I tried not to freak out too much at the thought that Emmanuel Ax himself had sat on that bench and played those very same keys.

And at the very end of the night,  the Carthage Choir,  Women’s Ensemble, and the three high school choirs joined together in “Let there be Peace on Earth.”  And I was the lucky son of a gun who got to play piano for those 300+ singers.  It was one of those moments when heaven and earth blur into one. “Perfect Harmony” indeed.

(I snapped this photo during the concert.  This is the Carthage Choir and Women’s Ensemble onstage- and in the background you can see some of the high school singers,  who listened to the concert and sang the finale from the balcony at the back of the stage.)