Easing Back into It

Sang last night in our first choir concert of the Spring season. It went well. Some friends brought me a stool I could perch myself on. And when, during the first number, I discovered that holding up my black folder was too much of a strain on my sore abs, I lay my music down on another stool that'd conveniently been left in front of me.

I should have the music memorized by now, anyway.

It's a little frustrating to be able to do stuff like this and still not be allowed to drive or mow the lawn or even take out the used cat litter out to the trash can in the alley, but I guess that's how it goes.

And Sunday, when we have our big concert, I think I'll bring a lightweight folding music stand. Can't depend on that other stool being there.

The Last Shall Be First

Tonight was our first Village Singers performance of the 2008-2009 concert season, or maybe it was the last concert of the 2007-2008 run.

It definitely was a reprise of our spring concert program, done at a church that couldn't fit us in last May but could this evening.

The concert went well; at least Linda our director was pleased, and she's pretty darn particular, especially about little things like harsh terminal rrrrs and people not holding legato lines or singing in their throats.

The interesting thing for me was that the venue was a church in a nearby town that's been without a pastor for a year or more. They'd had one interim pastor and I'd heard in late June that they might be looking for another. So I sent my church resume in. When I didn't hear back, following up was difficult, since the only contact information was via snail-mail in care of the church. And I admit I didn't feel it was worth it, as in August my executive presbyter enthusiastically mentioned during a committee meeting how the interim pastor had ripped out the Communion table, font, and pulpit, got rid of the hymnals, and installed the praise band's instruments front and center on the chancel. Me, I do not consider endless theologically-shallow chorusses to be a Means of Grace, so I figured that church wouldn't want me anyway.

But earlier this month I encountered some folks who know people who go to that church, and they told me my EP had gotten it totally wrong. Yes, they do have a praise band that plays sometimes, but everything else is still there, too.

Well then. Tonight was my chance to talk to someone face to face and see where things stood.

Hmm. Hymnals still in the pews. Communion table, font, pulpit, all still there on the platform, only moved aside to make room for our choir risers.

But were they still looking for a follow-on interim pastor? Had they even received my resume at all?

I found my opportunity as we were sitting in the fellowship hall, waiting to go on. I approached the elder who was expediting our performance, and asked him about it.

"Oh! I wish we'd had a chance to talk to you sooner!" Obviously, he'd never seen my resume. "We've decided not to get another interim; we think we're farther along in our search for a permanent pastor than that. But we've hired a seminary student to come in and fill our pulpit every Sunday. He starts the beginning of November."

I found out who this is: He's also the youth director at another church in the area. We voted him in as an official candidate for ministry at the presbytery meeting last Tuesday.

"He was recommended by the executive presbyter," said my informant.

Oh, gee, thanks, Mr. EP, sir, I didn't say. Thanks for the vote of confidence, not even giving them my name so they could at least talk to me.

But then I think back to that committee meeting in August, when the EP was describing how this church was proving its missional bona fides by minimizing the traditional media of church growth and nurture, e.g., the Word and Sacraments, and exalting contemporary, popular means like praise music. When it came time to recommend a steady pulpit supply for this church, that young man's name and reputation automatically must have come to him.

Or maybe my EP didn't think I'd be interested in a steady pulpit supply position.

However it was, the elder I talked to tonight asked me to give him my card anyway. "You never know," he said.

I don't expect anything out of it under the circs, but he might know somebody who knows somebody who needs an interim pastor. The more my name is out there, the better.

Assimilation

This evening was the first night back at community choir rehearsal since the summer's hiatus. And things look a little different in the rehearsal room.

Thanks to our director's recruiting efforts, we're up to about 66 strong this semester, and about a third of those people are new.

It will be interesting to see how well they all blend in, musically and otherwise. And how many of them drop out because they don't want to.

It can be hard, when there's such a large proportion of incomers. It can be an uphill battle to preserve a group's existing culture. I remember my theological college, where, in my third year, 45% of the students were First Years. It took much longer than it had the year before to train them in the ways of the Hall. Ways like, when everyone files into the dining hall for meals, everyone at a table pulls the benches out so all can be seated, you don't just pull out one end and plop your heavy self down and keep anyone else from getting in. Like, when you get up at dinner to refill your glass of water, you take the pitcher and get water for everyone at your table, not just yourself. Like, when the person who organizes the Prayers for Past Members comes around with the list of the college's graduates you are to pray for when it's your turn to lead chapel, you say Thank you and read through their prayer concerns, you don't go on an anti-ecclesiastical, self-centered rip about how you only believe in praying for people you see and know. If the critical mass of new people is too great, an institution can be changed altogether. Sometimes for the better, but often for the worse.

Though this choir, I suppose, doesn't depend on its members for its ethos. And with Linda in charge as musical director and drill sergeant, I suppose the incomers will be integrated. "Come back to my choir!!" she cries out when we aren't doing things her way. And with the new choristers, it will be "Come to my choir!"-- or else.

Thoughts on a Concert

This isn't a music review.

I went to the grand finale Pittsburgh Symphony concert down at Heinz Hall last night.

It was originally slated to be the Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem. But as I hear it, conductor Sir Andrew Davis left the orchestra a few months ago (not under the happiest of terms, I understand) and the conductor they scheduled in for this weekend, Yan Pascal Tortelier, didn't feel like doing it. Or something. At any rate, he preferred something French, so instead we had Fauré's Requiem and the Saint-Saens' Organ Symphony.

Fine with me; I've sung and know both the Brahms and the Fauré more than once, and the Organ Symphony and I are acquaintances from my college days, if not best musical buddies. And given it was the PSO and the Pittsburgh Mendelssohn Choir, I was sure they'd do well with either Requiem setting.

So there I was, up in my balcony seat, and first thing I notice through my opera glasses is that someone, the chorus mistress or the conductor, whoever, had decided to seat the choir fruit-basket style.

That's where you don't sit in sections, you're all mixed in together, a soprano next to a bass next to an alto next to a tenor next to a bass next to a-- you get it. I'm thinking whoever it was wanted to get more of an overall blend, versus the sound coming obviously one this section or that.

If that was the idea, it worked. Not to say they wouldn't've blended nicely if they'd been arranged the usual way. But the PMC is good enough that each chorister can maintain his or her part without needing to be propped up by others of the same voice.

I know one of the tenors; I'll have to ask him what he thought of the arrangements.

I suffered somewhat of a handicap listening to the Fauré. Because I've sung it before, I was anticipating entrances and lines and so on. I was remembering past performances. I was thinking of non-musical associations with the piece. So I wasn't as emotionally involved in last night's performance as I might have been.

At the same time, because my row was very crowded, I couldn't let myself go as if I were participating in this performance.

What? Are you accusing me of ever, ever singing under my breath in the audience at choral concerts? Me? Never!

Well, maybe . . . A little . . . during the crescendos . . . But with the row so crowded last night, I really couldn't . . . much . . . .

The soloists, soprano Nicole Cabell and baritone Lucas Meachem, were both very good. They both had great tone quality and good for them, they both sang from memory, without scores. Though Miss Cabell, unfortunately, in her Pie Jesu solo scooped a couple of times from the "pie" to the "Jesu." And things got a little out of hand at the end of the Libera Me, when Maître Tortelier was leading soloist and choir in a very staccato, accented ">li >ber >a >me" and Mr. Meachem, who was standing, of course, with his back to the conductor, got ahead of things.

But I'm not complaining. Mr. Meachem is a very tall and impressive person and is as worth looking at as listening to. He was wearing a three-piece suit, and a silly objecting voice inside me was saying, "That's sooo out of style! That's straight out of the '80s!" But my majority verdict was, "I don't care. He looks damn good in it. In fact, most guys in the 1980s looked damn good in theirs, too. Bring back the three-piece suit!!"

Miss Cabell was graceful, shapely, and trim in a raspberry-colored ruffled strapless gown. But I did wish she had thought to put up her long wavy hair! Up in the balcony, all we could see was hair and nose!

But maybe it was the fault of the lighting engineer. No one looks her best lit from the top.

The Saint-Saens Organ Symphony, after the intermission, was for me a trip into the past. I remember playing that album when I was working the front desk late nights at my college residence hall. And somehow, the music got me thinking of vague dreams and half-formed plans of twenty and more years ago . . .

Sometime in the '80s I got an idea for a house I wanted to build for myself. It's basically an energy-efficient Arts and Crafts style four-square.

The program was based on my becoming a successful architect with a large studio and office in her home . . . and on my marrying a musician. This unidentified, imaginary bridegroom was to be a professor of music at the local conservatory, and he'd regularly bring his colleagues and students over to play chamber music in our front room. Therefore, it had to be designed to accommodate them. With enough room for at least a baby grand.

Unfortunately, the only music major I knew well was the kind of guy I had to build a fire under just to keep a conversation going. Too much work.

Oh, yeah, there was also a violist I dated for awhile. He had the affrontery to say the Beethoven Violin Concerto was no good because it didn't give the violists that much to do. So much for him.

I've taken a stab a time or two over the years at drawing up my dream house, and maybe, even now, I'll see about getting the drawings done. Call it "Residence for a Music Lover" or something like that. Architects used to do that sort of demonstration project all the time.

But back to last night's music. The Organ Symphony was well-played, in general. 99% of the audience, I'd say, rose to give the PSO a standing ovation. The 1% included me . . . years ago, after being exposed to some truly magnificent chamber music artists, I decided I would not give cheap, peer-pressure standing ovations. If I stand up to applaud, it's because the performance was so great I'm compulsively launched out of my seat. And tonight, I thought Maître Tortelier had the orchestra playing so loudly in the finale that the sound got muddied up. I'm sure it could be done better, and when it is, I shall stand.

Hail to Thee, Our Alma Mater!

Whoop! Hurray!! and Hallelujah!!!

Let the celebration on Mass Street in Lawrence begin!!

The Jayhawks pulled it out in overtime to win the national men's basketball championship! KU, 75; Memphis, 68!

What's more, it was a proper closely-played championship game and not a going-through-the-motions, let's-not-do-it-and-say-we-did flop or a get-the-number-of-that-tank rollover!

I was a good girl and went to choir this evening. Half the tenor and bass sections were missing, however. I wonder why . . . ? ;-)

We were practicing "Over the Rainbow" for our spring concert series in May, and in the margin I was doodling, "Auntie Em! Auntie Em! I wanna go home and watch Kansas play basketball!"

At 9:16 PM, my cellphone rang. Thank God it was in the middle of a crescendo, or Coach Linda would have ripped me one.

I knew who it was-- my sister Lynne*, calling me to TURN ON THE GAME!!!!!!

Turned the phone off-- I didn't want to catch hell-- but as soon as I got home I turned on http://www.ncaa.com/ and caught the game from the half.

Got hairy awhile there for KU fans, didn't it? I theoretically was redeeming the time by doing some handwork on the skirt I'm making (no, it still isn't finished), but I think I only got about 3" of stitching done. Kept putting down the sewing and staring at the action on the screen. Come on, guys, stick in some threes!! I don't like cliffhangers and I don't have a good stomach for suspense, but I made myself stay with the game in those last few seconds when KU was behind and it didn't look good, not good at all.

Ai-ai-yi, glad I did. Alley-oop! Super Mario Chalmers (who I see is not related to former KU Chancellor E. Lawrence Chalmers) finally launched a trey with a couple seconds left and whoop!! Overtime!!

Riiiiiiiinnnnggggg! goes my cellphone.

"Lynne*! Yes, I've got it on! Overtime!"

We stayed on the phone with each other the rest of the game, my brother-in-law Leander* spelling her when the excitement got to be too much for her. We realized the streaming video from the NCAA website was more than thirty seconds behind the real time TV action. So Lynne* kept me posted.

She'd be going, "KU just got two!"

And I'd say, "Oh, no, we're still on the commercials!"

"KU got another two!"

"Wait a minute--! We're back! Yeah, there's that first two! Yeaaa!!!!"

"Memphis got the ball back! Trying for a three! Missed it! KU's got the ball back!"

"Oh! oh! Here's the second two-pointer you said KU got before! So KU gets the ball back after Memphis misses a three?"

It was strangely like having a thirty-second look into the future. I knew what was going to happen before I saw it! And then it did!

When the clock on the computer stream said nearly 20 seconds were left to play, my sister in Kansas City is yelling, "It's over!!! WE WON!!!!"

"Wait a minute, I wanna see it!! Yes . . . yes . . . right, KU's got the ball, and--- Yesssss!!!"

We rang off after the interview with Coach Bill Self. The computer feed kept going for the net and trophy ceremony, but---

What's this? There's no blinking sound!

How can I enjoy a proper KU championship net and trophy ceremony with NO BLINKING SOUND??? I WANT TO HEAR THE SCHOOL SONG AND THE ROCK CHALK CHANT!!!

I know they were being sung. The players had their arms around each other's shoulders and were swaying side to side in fine KU tradition. The Jayhawk mascot and the cheerleaders were doing the regulation choreography. And I couldn't hear a bloody thing.

So I supplied the soundtrack myself.

High above the golden valley,
Glorious to view,
Stands our noble Alma Mater,
Towering towards the blue.

Lift the chorus ever onward,
Crimson and the Blue!
Hail to thee, our Alma Mater,
Hail to old KU!

Raaaahhhhk-Chaaaahk Jaaaay-haaaawk, Kay-Yoo-ooo!
Raaaahhhhhk-Chaaahk Jaaaay-haaaawk, Kay-Yoo-ooo!
RockChalkJayhawkKU!
RockChalkJayhawkKU!

Messiah

Despite wind, weather, and sloppy roads I made it into town this evening for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra-Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh performance of Handel's Messiah.

Theology

I've been acquainted with Messiah as a work since I was in high school or before. I've sung it in performance once or twice, and innumerable times in Messiah sing-alongs. And it always seemed to me that there was this great gray gap between "His yoke is easy" at the end of Part I and "Worthy is the Lamb" at the end, broken only by the Hallelujah Chorus and maybe the "Rod of Iron" and "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth" arias.

But life and experience alter many things, and tonight it was those parts I used to blur over that made the most impression on me. "He was despised." "Thy rebuke hath broken his heart." All those parts that tell how Jesus the Christ was rejected and rebelled against by the people He came to save. That's how it is. No redemption without suffering, no crown without the cross. Angels announcing "Glory to God!" to shepherds and a Child born unto us are all very well-- but that good news means nothing without what followed thirty-three years later.

There were some college-aged people in my row who left at the intermission, before those parts were sung. Maybe they thought as I used to. Maybe they were too young to understand.

But I hope not.

History

I've read that it was King George III who leapt to his feet at the first performance of the Hallelujah chorus, so impressed was he. And all his subjects present followed suit, and so have audiences thereafter.

Yes, that George III.

You'd think it would be considered unpatriotic for us Americans to assume and keep up the custom. But I'm glad it isn't. Farmer George, despite his political myopia concerning certain trans-Atlantic colonies, wasn't wrong (or mad) all the time. And this is one time he was very right and sane indeed.

And tonight in Pittsburgh, we stood.

Performance

I would say the PSO chamber musicians and the Mendelssohn Choir did very well.

Considering.

Considering that conductor Julian Wachter chose to take the tempi so fast, he resembled a Presbyterian preacher with a half-hour's worth of sermon whose elders have told him he'd better not go over fifteen minutes--or else. Very marcato, very clipped, scarcely a largo or a tenuto the whole evening.

Maybe I exaggerate. But not by much. The later it got, the more prestissimosimosimo he went. In the middle of the "Blessing and honor, glory and power" chorus, I heard a man in the row above me whisper to his wife, "He's taking it too fast." I glanced around. His wife was waggling her fingertips together in a rapid motion, like the beaks of ravenous birds. It summed up the conductor's technique very aptly.

You can get certain musical effects with that approach. Maybe you could argue they would be authentic Baroque effects. But go too far, and you no longer have music-- only effects.

The soloists? I liked the bass-baritone the best. The mezzo seemed to have trouble with her phrasing-- she never seemed to hold a line. I don't know if she was fighting a cold, or doing it on purpose.

All the soloists had good tone and intonation. But none of them really filled the hall. Maybe it was the acoustics.

Maybe I wish I could afford to sit closer and find out!

Well, I Suppose It IS Starting Already

Tonight was the first rehearsal for the 2007-2008 season of the Village Singers, in which I sing soprano.

You can always tell when Linda, our director, has been off to another choral conductors' conference in the vacation. Tonight we practiced making human A-frames, to share tone and resonance, and maybe a few nits while we were at it.

We also began to practice this season's Christmas music. As usual, we have a whole calendar of concerts in December, and we have to start now so by then we'll be able to achieve the sound and ensemble that Linda now hears only in her head.

And as much as I gripe about the culture making us focus on Christmas too early, there's a way in which early preparation is inextricably tied to the season.

God, after all, started preparing for Christmas-- that is, for the Incarnation of His Son-- as far back as the Garden of Eden.

All that process of the call of Abraham: of Israel's slavery in Egypt and their deliverance from it: of kings and prophets and exile and restoration: all that was God getting ready and getting His people ready for Christmas.

And Christmas itself is about the Son of God getting ready to die on the cross for our sins. And the cross was preparation for Christ's resurrection, and the resurrection for His ascension into heaven, and His ascension into heaven was preparation for the sending of the Holy Spirit and the birth and commissioning of the Church.

Preparation after preparation after preparation! From of old to the present and into the future! All this preparation, getting ready for the great eternal feast that God has planned for His people when He makes all things new. That will be the ultimate holiday. That will be when we finally can sit down forever and rest and enjoy.

In the meantime, we're in choir working on music for Advent and Christmas of 2007. And yeah, we do have to start getting ready now.

Modern Life

I've just spent the past seven-plus hours on the phone trying to get a clean copy of Windows XP onto my little IBM ThinkPad 240X. I have three operating systems sitting in parallel on my computer, the bootleg XP Professional that came with it, the genuine XP Professional I paid a fortune for last year, and a vestigal version of the Windows 98 OS that was on it when the computer was new.

I want one system. Period.

I've been everywhere by phone or computer since 2:30 or so-- MicroSoft, the IBM/Lenovo website, IBM support in Atlanta (three or four times), and an auxiliary group called Experts Live. I've got a charge against my credit card for a service I didn't ask for and isn't looking to do me any good. And still, nobody can tell me what I didn't already know from the last time I tried this marathon in March.

To-wit:

a) this computer can't boot from an external USB CD-ROM (which is all I have to get stuff onto it, unless you include the thumbdrive, which plugs into the same USB port), because

b) the BIOS doesn't support booting from a USB device, and

c) This is a hardware limitation. I have to use the Boot Disks for clean installing Windows XP.

I knew all that before I even picked up the phone! All I wanted today was to find out, where do I get the boot disks that weren't included when I bought the little laptop off eBay over a year ago? And how do I use them to get a clean, genuine, non-parallel version of XP onto the thing once I do have them?

But seven hours later . . .

The problem is, everyone wants to be helpful. Everyone wants to be the one who Finds the Solution. So all these techies take me through all the steps with the BIOS Setup, etc., etc., etc., that I've been through before. And I humor them, because hey, they might just magically find something the last guy didn't. And they never want to give up! They always want to try One More Thing! There's always One More Patch to download and run through the system!

In fact, I'm even trying installing a Data Killer program, to see if maybe that'll get rid of the redundant systems and let me start over.

But I'm probably whistling in the dark. The fact remains that for some silly reason, this laptop with no integral A:\ or C:\ drive will NOT allow one to boot via the USB port.

And what all these enthusiastic, well-meaning, but ultimately not very effective people should have told me in the beginning is

a) I can't get a boot disk from IBM. They just don't provide them anymore;

b) I might be able to get one from some website or via eBay. Maybe;

c) If I do find one, I should Google for some other website to tell me how to install it; and

d) It's sure as shootin' that I won't be able to install it without purchasing or borrowing an external A:/ drive that runs off the serial port. Or I can try some local computer geek who has one and can do it for me.

The hilarious thing is I was trying this now because that I wanted to take the laptop with me when I go away tomorrow. I'm assembling with the rest of the North American Welsh Choir to sing a concert in my hometown this coming Saturday. I'm bunking at a friend's, and I really don't want to have to borrow her computer all week. Or to shlep my bigger, heavier Toshiba Satellite along.

But it looks like I'll have to, one or the other, if I want to keep up on my email, blogs, accounts, and so on.

But think of it-- twenty years ago, this would not have been a problem. Computer? Why does anyone want a computer with her on vacation?

But I've travelled with a laptop since 1995, and how can you expect me to stop now?

Mustering the troops

" . . . and Scatters the Frost like Ashes"

"Our Fearless Leader considers whether we'd sound better singing against the wind"

(Here you see what an amateur blogger/HTML formatter I am. If I knew how, these photos would be in the same post.)

"He Spreads the Snow like Wool . . . "

Winter is making a curtain call in southwestern Pennsylvania, and points north and west. The 24th of April, and it's 29 degrees, snowy, foggy and soggy.

So who are these crazy/intrepid people braving the lugubrious weather up on the roof of the Mount Lebanon Presbyterian Church? It's our little pick-up choir, come up to put the final touches on our rehearsal for singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the Pirates' game next Sunday. We're suffering for a good cause, to benefit the renovation of the Strand Theater in Zelienople. Not this afternoon; next Sunday at the game. We all hope the weather will be more civilized on the 1st, but if it isn't, we'll be used to it!

(Don't even ask me about being used to the way the Pirates are playing so far this season. I try not to think about it.)