Wintertide in a small world

Wednesday night, one of the choirs I sing in had its dress rehearsal for our upcoming concert. Lots of professionals joined us--brass, percussion, harp, and two soloists. The soprano soloist looked really familiar when I saw her.

And then I realized it. Once upon a time, this woman was my mother.

* * *

Hold on, I'll get back to the soloist in a minute. I'm really excited for our concert. It's been great this fall and winter to be singing regularly in a choir. Almost all the pieces we're doing were either instant hits with me, or else they've grown on me over time.

Oh, and I should add right up front, for anyone local (east side of Cleveland): the concert is this Sunday at 7:00. See flier for details!

Pro tip: the church is huge, and the best sound is going to be 10 rows back from the front (and further), because it takes about that far out for everything to blend. If you just want to hear the trombone, by all means sit front row on the right.

* * *

I first started singing in choir because of drama. That is, doing theater in high school, not people being all crazy, though that's also a good enough reason to sing. I was basically pulled into drama by one of my best friends (isn't that always the case?), auditioning for the fall show and getting a small role, auditioning for the winter and getting another small role, and then auditioning for the spring musical, ending up as pretty much an all-purpose chorus member in Fiddler on the Roof. I was a Jewish boy, a Russian dancer, and a bottle dancer (despite no dance experience). Singing in the chorus, one of the older girls said that I should be in choir, and when you're a freshman boy and an older girl tells you something, you tend to hear that just a little bit better. So I joined our church choir (not, incidentally, a great place to meet girls) and then I ended up pulled into the choir for my sophomore year as an accompanist (we changed directors, though, and I bailed out of playing the piano--because I wasn't very good--and started singing instead.

Even though the choral program was something of a dumpster fire that year, I found myself singing in the show choir as well as the concert choir, and so when we got a great new director my junior year, I was ready to go and found myself a section leader in the regular choir, men's ensemble, and show choir. Our new director not only raised the musical level of our choirs tremendously, but he also brought in several elements that spoke especially well to the adolescent male soul. First, the men's ensemble was something new and special. We sometimes rehearsed during the school day, but often we met in the evening. Now, I'll argue that there's just something special about the harmonics of a male vocal ensemble that makes it inherently amazing, but beyond that I think that there's also something magical about making the extra commitment, spending the extra time together, working toward a common goal.

And that was also something that our director brought: a focus on goals and competition. I assume it's more or less ubiquitous, but our choirs and bands played in district competition each year, where groups were rated from 1-5, with 1's advancing to the state competition. The previous year, with our one-year director, our best choir got a 3, and our other choir got a 4. Ouch. We were acutely aware of what losing looked like, but I think it was pretty clear early on that our director, with clear goals, a plan, professionalism, and attention to details was not taking us to another district competition massacre. From day one we learned to sight-read,which also spoke to my soul as a pianist (however mediocre) and trombone player (again, however mediocre). I already knew how to read music, but it was another thing entirely to do so with vocal music, and I loved the challenge.

Anyway, long story a little less long, we got 1's at District that year and 1's at State. Well, except our men's group, which got a 2. Hugely disappointing, considering all the work we put in, but also hugely motivating for those of us who were juniors. Spoiler alert, we got 1's at State the next year.

* * *

I've already gone on at length, and there's one more story that I've committed to telling at this point, so I'll just say that my college experience with choral music was even better, and better in very different ways from the ones that made my high school experience good. My experience was such that I was happy to go off and pursue a master's degree in choral conducting afterward. And not just because I had no idea what else I could do with my liberal arts degree.

To bring down the curtain on this post, I have to go back to elementary school. I think it was back in 6th grade, I was one of a handful of my classmates who got the chance to audition to be in a high school play. I got the part, and I and a 4th grader from my school became children in this play (speaking lines and all!), Life With Father. Obviously, "Father" played a big role. Mother, though, was the teen-aged version of the woman I saw again Wednesday night for the first time in maybe three decades. Her path took her from our little high school's theater and music departments to the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and on to a professional career that found her in Cleveland, where she took this gig as a soloist with our choir. And obviously own circuitous route through music degrees brought me here as well.

I'm not sure if she remembered me with any specificity, and I can't blame her. I was in a show in high school that used elementary kids, and if one told me that we were in a play together, I can confidently say that I have no memories of working together. Though, to be fair, I was a pretty memorable kid, and there were two of us (as opposed to the gaggle of brats that infested The Best Christmas Pageant Ever). Still, it was nice to connect briefly with her, to talk about the family that still ties us to Bellevue, Ohio, and the paths that brought each of us to Cleveland, and the apparently-small-world of its choral music scene.

Favorite Holiday Songs

Holidailies prompts us today to consider our favorite holiday song. I would have a hard time narrowing it down, in particular because it's a question of listening to music on the one hand and performing music on the other.

I'm sure I probably sang it in church before then, but I feel like I "discovered" the hymn "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming" my freshman year of college. One of my fellow freshmen invited me to sing in a barbershop quartet, which I did, and as Christmas approached, he had us preparing a number of Christmas carols arranged in a barbershop style (well, sort of--not nearly as many dominant seventh chords as barbershop is usually known for), and going around to all the dorms caroling in four-part harmony. "Lo, How a Rose..." quickly became my favorite for its beautiful simplicity combined with the rhythmic complexity of the cadences that end three of the four phrases. Even though our barbershop quartet did not survive all four years, we did get together a group of male voices every year to go around caroling. And every year, I would get this carol in as many of our stops as I could. (For what it's worth, the barbershop arrangement of "Angels We Have Heard On High" was a close second, and I can remember loving that all the back to elementary school.

At my first high school teaching job, where one of my duties was directing the choirs, I started a tradition with the "double quartet" group of going around campus before Christmas break and caroling with the same carols I did in college. And, yes, "Lo How a Rose" was still my favorite over the six years that I taught at that school. I hope the boys I worked with remember that experience as fondly as I do.

And now, at my current school, I work with a student-led a cappella group, and this year for the first time we will be performing at the school's annual Vespers service, which is basically a whole lot of musical performance, readings of the relevant Biblical passages, and congregational carol singing. So what are we singing? I'm sure you've guessed. Tonight, we had a run-through of the program to handle logistics, and afterward my group had probably it's only chance to rehearse in the chapel.

And it was gorgeous. I'm not claiming any special powers as a music teacher--this is really just a song that, as long as you get it in tune, pretty much sells itself. Beautiful, as always. And I suppose that's part of why it's my favorite carol to perform.



Now, when it comes to listening, well, that's a different story. It's hard for me to pick just one. I have a soft spot in my heart for Bing Crosby, because when I was growing up we always listened to records of White Christmas and some other Crosby Christmas stuff. But I think I'm going to go in a different direction entirely: Tim Minchin's "White Wine in the Sun."



I really like Christmas.

Local Music Scene: Cleveland Edition

Last night, an old friend of mine invited me out to see some bands at a place called The Grog Shop over on the east side of Cleveland. It's the first time I've been to a concert in (I think) 4+ years, and I wasn't familiar with any of the bands playing. Fortunately, my friend Elliot has good taste in music.  If I'm not mistaken, all three bands are from the Cleveland area.

It was a small venue, but we got there early enough that we not only weren't part of the crowd who didn't get in because the place was full but also managed to snag a space to stand right to the side of the stage. We were about as close as we could be, and being off to the side, it almost felt like members of the bands were looking at us when they were looking at bandmates--in other words, it was like being part of the band, without any of the pressure of playing the right notes or looking cool.

Tom Evanchuck (and the Old Money--I think--they weren't announced that way, but I think from his website that that's who he was playing with) was good. It was a show full of covers, but they did them well. Tom plays guitar well and sells a song; I think I picked up that his drummer is his brother, and I absolutely loved watching him on drums: good drummer, clearly having fun.

The second band was The Moxies, which my friend described as "Rockabilly Punk." And that pretty much summed it up: they'd be grooving along with this rockabilly feel and then they'd burst out into this punk explosion. Their show was a ton of fun. The crowd--which I swear seemed like it was about 83% high schoolers--seemed to know all the songs and were singing along and rocking out, which helped make it a fun show.

As good as Tom Evanchuck was, The Moxies brought something even more polished, but still with a wild energy to it.

Elliot picked up an EP and gave it to me s a souvenir, and I was just a bit disappointed: it felt like the studio recording captured the rockabilly feel but not the punk side so well.I'm still listening to it, though, still trying getting into it. The vocals live were as good or better than the studio recording.

The final band of the night was The Modern Electric. To the polish and energy of The Moxies, The Modern Electric also added a bit more... show. The stage was set with a TV that looked like something we had in our living room in the 80s, which had A Christmas Story playing throughout, and along with that there were some old lamps and furniture set up around the stage.

The music was solid--a lot of fun, a nice sound, and the singer, Garrett Komyati, has an intensity that really takes it to another level; there was a real sincerity there, like he was putting his heart out there on every song.

The bass player and drummer switched back and forth between bass and drums, and I suspect that the musical flexibility these guys have (the lead singer was also bopping around between piano and guitar) is one of the things that makes the band distinctive.

Once again, the crowd knew all the songs, so they were rocking it like this concert was their job, too. Elliot picked up a 2-song EP for me, and their sound holds up really well in the studio, it seems to me. I played it for Lauren, and "David Bowie Save Us All" is now lodged firmly in both our minds.

Christmas Music

Tonight was our school's Christmas concert, with an array of instrumental and choral groups, some dancers, and even a guest artist, a professional singer (alumna). It was nice, but I'm not going to say much more about it. Instead, I wanted to use it as a springboard to talk about some of my favorite memories of music and Christmas.

1) Vinyl. Growing up, our Christmas music in the home was on vinyl, and it was just about the only time of the year that we listened to music, aside from some patriotic stuff (Dad love Kate Smith's "God Bless America") around the 4th. The music I remember most was Mitch Miller's Christmas Sing-a-long with Mitch, which I think I loved as much as anything for the included singalong sheets. Also firmly lodged in memory were the Bing Crosby Christmas albums, particularly White Christmas and some record that had "The Little Drummer Boy," which was quite possibly my favorite Christmas song.

2) One year, right before Christmas, my parents bought a new car. From my young perspective, the most amazing feature of this vehicle was that it had a tape deck. I think we literally bought the car on Christmas Eve. On the way home, we stopped at a gas station and bought two tapes, both filled with Christmas music. That night, after an early Christmas Eve service at church, we spent a couple hours driving around looking at lights and listening to the two tapes we'd bought.

3) From my youngest days right up 'til now, I've always had a soft spot for Christmas Eve services, because they were almost exclusively made up of the singing of carols. That plus the solemnity of an evening service by candlelight equaled magic.

4) In high school, I was in our show choir, the Choraliers. I was in it three years, and with the director we had my last two years, it was awesome. We performed a lot of Christmas shows, and I loved it. Our director put together a good show and emphasized professionalism to us. It was so much fun to put on a good show, to bask in the appreciation of the audiences. I don't remember all the songs we sang, but two of the most fun were "Fruitcake" and "The Monotone Angel."

5) Also in high school, one year I had a solo at the Christmas concert. There's a tenor solo in "Twas the Night Before Christmas," and I had it. It was a real confidence-booster to be chosen for the solo. It was also a big dose of reality when I messed up at the concert. It would hardly be the last solo I would fail to carry off perfectly, but I survived the experience relatively unscathed.

6) My freshman year of college, I got pulled in to be the tenor in a barbershop quartet. It pulled me out of my comfort zone and gave me plenty more opportunities to botch music (the karaoke contest we entered was a particularly embarrassing example). One of the things we did, though, was to go around to the freshmen dorms and sing Christmas carols in 4-part harmony. It was so cool. Even after our lead--the guy who put the whole thing together--failed out of school, we got together a group the next three years to continue (and expand) the tradition. It was such a cool experience.

7) In graduate school, we did a Madrigal Feaste. So much work, so much fun!

8) As a young choral director at an all-boys school, I drew on my college experience and had our Double Quartet (which, sadly, rarely seemed to have 8 members) go around campus caroling every year. It would take us 2-3 hours on a night that was cold in a time of the year that was incredibly busy, but I don't think any of the guys ever regretted the time spent doing it. Their fellow students were appreciative (for the most part) and the faculty whose homes we went to were positively adoring. We could usually consume our weight in cookies and hot chocolate if they knew we were coming.

9) During one of the two years I lived in Rhode Island, I was pulled into a Victorian Carolers group called VOX (Voices of X-mas). We performed probably 2-3 times each week during the month of December, with gigs split charity work--hospitals, nursing homes, and the like--and swanky, exclusive events that paid well. Even the latter was ultimately charity work, because all the money we raised beyond operating costs were donated to charity. I loved that experience, and I've been meaning to recreate it where I am now, but it's just so hard to find the time when you're starting a family. One of these years...

10) The final spot is reserved for whatever it is I'm going to think of tomorrow, because right now I'm just rushing to get this thing written before the day's over! I'm sure I've forgetting at least one incredible experience with Christmas music. And if I'm not, well, then consider slot number 10 to be reserved for your own use, to share a story!

Green Farmhouse Chairs and Being Thirteen

I heard Billy Collins talking on the radio today about his view that poetry needs a certain amount of accessibility to draw the reader in and a certain amount of mystery or difficulty to keep us there and draw us deeper (I'm paraphrasing here). Just before April's National Poetry month started, I found myself totally taken in by a poem with these qualities, Donald Hall's poem "Green Farmhouse Chairs." It was a poem that took several reads for me to really appreciate, and I know that I still haven't gotten it entirely. Still, it's a beautiful poem. The poem's speaker is in his 90s, and stylistically the poem mimics the wandering mind, making connections over a lifetime. At the same time, of course, it's carefully constructed and circles back in interesting ways. One of the parts that caught me up in the poem was this section:

Idolatrous of this white farmhouse
since I was ten, in my ninth decade
I daydream that it burns to the ground

3. so that nobody will empty it.
My children comfort me with their care,
bringing five grandchildren to visit,
but none will settle in the country.

There's a part of me that wishes I was one of those grandchildren, that I did want to settle there, in the country. I mean, I do want to settle in the country, but as much as I'm looking forward to us building our own house, there's a part of me that wishes I had some old family enclave to inherit--not just because it's cheaper but because of the sense of place, the fragments of family history in the house: Hall refers to a number of these explicitly, the tokens that have come down of family members over generations.

What it comes down to, I suppose, is that I'm nostalgic for something that I never had but of which I can understand the appeal. I have a similar reaction to Stephen Kellogg's song "Thirteen," in which he looks back on the innocence of being 13 years old and, in essence, a naive player. Meeting all these girls over the summer, these girls "French-kissing boys into men," these brief but intense relationships that are destined to be over even before the summer is.

That was never my experience in any way, shape, or form, but when I listen to the song, I find myself getting nostalgic for that experience.

Isn't that a funny thing, though, looking back wistfully on something you never had? As if there isn't enough wist for the life you did have...

Here, for your listening pleasure, is Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers live with "Thirteen":

Music Monday: A Day at the Races

Although they won't hit North America until May (for Brian, I guess), the UK (and who knows where else) are getting remastered versions of Queen's albums right about now, and as a result I came across this review of what is my favorite Queen album, "A Day at the Races."

You should be aware that "my favorite Queen album" is not an altogether meaningless distinction, coming as it does from someone who has at times been positively obsessed with this band. I was a Johnny-come-lately, not discovering Queen until Wayne's World (which I didn't actually see) and, while I was in Canada on a Spring Break trip with the French Club, the televised Freddie Mercury tribute concert. I fell in love with "Bohemian Rhapsody." Who didn't? I nearly picked it up on the Wayne's World soundtrack, but instead I reasoned that if I liked this song so much, I might well like others by Queen. So I picked up Classic Queen and, in fact, did love just about everything on the album. So I picked up Greatest Hits. And from there it was just a small step to buying more or less every album they had released.

Lauren will tell you that I have a tendency to fixate on a band and listen just to them over and over, but she didn't even see me in high school. That was obsession. We had a six CD changer and it would be filled with Queen--the real decision being which six albums would make the cut. The thing about Queen was not just that they were a phenomenally talented band, though that was surely part of it. As a band and choir geek, I could appreciate the complexity of what they were doing, and that was part of it too. The thing about it, too, was that most songs on any given album were very good. If you only know Queen's hits, you're really missing out.

And now we're starting to get at why A Day at the Races is my favorite Queen album. There are certainly reasons why A Night at the Opera, its predecessor that included "Bohemian Rhapsody" along with what is surely one of the most amazing songs--from a musical perspective--that they wrote, "The Prophet's Song." Yet there are enough songs on that album that don't do it for me in a way that isn't true of A Day at the Races.

I've often used A Day at the Races as an introduction to Queen. The album opens--and closes--with a sort of overture that alludes to the 7th song on the album, "White Man," before building in stair-step fashion to the opening track, a rocker that became a hit, "Tie Your Mother Down." The introduction, though, speaks to the concept of unity (well, of sorts), or at least the conception of the album as an album in a way that most are not today.

The rocker, though, is followed by a sweet, soulful piano ballad that (so I learned from the review I referenced earlier) is all Freddie, right up to the overdubbed vocal harmonies. It's a sweet, beautiful love song, with haunting piano figures and just a bit of musical complexity to contrast its basic, simple nature.

Each song on the album, despite what I said earlier about some kind of unity, is a contrast from each song that's come before, as does "Long Away." It was written and sung by Brian May, and it's a fairly straightforward guitar-and-vocals song (I'm afraid my descriptive powers fail). It's a nice enough song, reflective and a bit melancholy while still thrumming along--not too heavy, not too light.

"The Millionaire Waltz" is simply incredible, though I'm sure quite overlooked. It's something of an oddity, but just so brilliantly executed. I mean, it's a waltz. Who does that? Sometimes it's driven by piano, sometimes by guitars. Its stylistic shifts are not so pronounced as "Bohemian Rhapsody," but it has the same creative genius behind it. It's also a song that really shows off the fact that Queen was made up of musicians. This is a song of shades, of changes both gradual and abrupt in musical texture, in dynamics, in its push and pull... just brilliant. And, for me, it's sometimes the little touches that do it for me, and in this song, it's the utterly perfect use of triangle. Seriously.

The mood shifts to something a bit more straight-forwardly pop with its rolling piano. And it leads well into one of the biggest hits from the album, "Somebody to Love," with its gospel sensibility and layered textures. This is a song that I imagine everyone knows, so I don't know that there's much to say about it. The song that follows is another less-known song, but probably the most musically powerful. It doesn't have quite the same richness and depth as either "The Millionaire Waltz" or as the song it's most easily compared to from the previous album (which is to say "The Prophet's Song"), but it's musically quite powerful. At the beginning, the guitar reminds me--incongruously--of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," because in both there is a latent power to the chords underlying what is a soft statement. Soon enough, however, the guitars turn driving and louder, crescendoing to a climax that is staggering. At the same time, the lyrics are some of the deeper and more--I'm not sure the right word is political--broadly social lyrics in the band's output, dealing as they do with the treatment by European settlers and their American descendants of the Native Americans. It concludes with the poignant criticism of the "White Man": "What is left of your dream? / Just the words on your stone. / Man who learned how to teach then forgot how to learn."

And then, the air clears and we have a song that's just flat out fun and sexy with "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy." It's hard to be in a bad mood when listening to this song.

And then there's "Drowse," on of my favorite Roger Taylor songs. I know a lot of people like "I'm in Love with my Car" from A Night at the Opera, but it doesn't do anything for me. It's softer than anything else Taylor was behind, more thoughtful and, ultimately, better for me.

Finally, there "Teo Torriate (Let Us Cling Together)." It's a nod to their success touring in Japan as well as a stirring anthem, and beautiful.