The Joy of Music

I'm thinking this week about the quality of choral performances and what rehearsal techniques are required to produce that quality.

I sang, off and on for fifteen years, with Oratorio Society of Washington/The Washington Chorus, under Robert Shafer's baton. I had first sung with him in Fontainebleau, France, in 1971 while studying with Nadia Boulanger. He is a musical perfectionist and I love that about him. Yes, he could go off on us during rehearsal, but if a singer is paying attention and working hard, she shouldn't mind that. If all the singers were paying attention and working hard, he wouldn't have had to go off on us. In my humble opinion.

Then I moved to Tucson and was one of the charter members of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra Chorus, led by Dr. Bruce Chamberlain. Bruce's rehearsal were like sitting in a graduate musicology class without having to pay the tuition. He, also, is a perfectionist. It was a joy to sit in those rehearsals.

With both these men, when I would drive home late at night, I knew I had just participated in a music-making session of the highest quality.

The chorus with which I'm singing now doesn't leave me with that feeling. The conductor, a dear friend, has inherited this chorus; he is in his first year in this position. We haven't discussed the situation, but I believe he feels he must tread lightly this first year. He did not walk in with a big broom and sweep the place clean. The rehearsals are lovefests, not intensive fix-everything sessions.

It's frustrating for me to be surrounded by people who insist on chatting with each other when the director is speaking, or who don't know how to sing with a chorus. A chorus is about blending and supporting each other—again, in my humble opinion. If your voice is aging and you can no longer control your vibrato, please excuse yourself from the symphony chorus and go sing with a community chorus.

And as I sit through these rehearsals, giving my time in a city an hour's commute away from home (meaning I don't get home on rehearsal nights until 10:30-11:00), I think about quitting. Last night I wondered what it would be like not to sing with a chorus. I've done it for so long and love it so much, but this organization is not meeting my needs.

I even thought about asking Tyler to start a small vocal group, maybe eight or twelve voices. We could do the classical repertoire or a cappella jazz or pop. And we could bring in the highest calibre singers who do it for the love and because they have great abilities and ears.

In the meantime, I keep going to rehearsals. And as I sit there, agonizing over the singers around me, biting my tongue, I remember Tucson rehearsals. And I sing the Hallelujah Chorus without looking at the music because I've sung it 50 times over the past five years! (Thanks, Bruce)