To sing!

For very many years, I used to sing in choirs, starting in elementary school. I always loved it and continued singing after I graduated from college. When I moved into my current digs 26 years ago, my across the hall neighbor belonged to the local community choir and when I went to hear them perform, I immediately realized just how much I had missed choral singing, so I signed up the next semester and sang with them for a few seasons until I decided to take my chances and audition with the Akron Symphony Chorus. Well, I made it in and sang with them for a several years until a new choral director demanded auditions and I didn't pass the sightreading part, since I have never been a good sightreader. I'm primarily an ear trained musician who sings and plays instruments largely by ear. I've never thought that there was anything wrong with that, frankly, as long as I could learn my part correctly. In the Akron Symphony Orchestra Chorus, I was frequently the alto section leader since I always learned my part quickly by listening carefully and sort of sightreading as best I could. I loved singing with this group but for the fact that it meant a second trip to Akron after working there all day and coming home to Kent. I was frequently exhausted during rehearsals and was always grateful to get home. I had the privilege to sing with some amazing musicians and to perform under some distinguished conductors as well. But when I didn't make the audition the one year, my choral singing days came to an end. Well, each Christmas I attend the Kent Choral Society's annual holiday concert and last night they did the Schubert Mass in G, two movements of which I already know the alto line from listening to them on my iPod. So I could just about sing along with the Kyrie and Credo movements since I just about know them by heart now. I am blessed with a very good musical memory, thank goodness, so maybe one of these days, time permitting, of course, I will get back into choral singing again since I really, really miss it. I love the high that comes from a really top notch performance. I remember some performances that I did with both the Kent Choral Society and the Akron Symphony Chorus that just left me tingling with a high better than any drug because we did such a great job performing pieces that I loved singing that we created magic, I am convinced. When the Kent Choral Society sang the Bach Cantata No. 140, "Wachet Auf, Ruft uns Die Stimme" and the Mozart Requiem, K.646 with the Canton Symphony Orchestra, I swear, we brought Mozart and Bach back to life that night. I felt their presence on stage with us. It was like nothing I had ever experienced up to then. It was pure magic, and fortunately, I have a recording of that performance to keep for all time to remember it. That is the kind of magic that you can create when everything comes together right and the musicians and the audience are all on the same wave length. Magic happens. Real, true, unadulterated magic. I don't know what it is, but it's an unbelievable feeling, the best high ever. I remember, when we drove home from that Canton Symphony performance, we felt like we were floating on air. It was truly beyond description how we felt. Just high, high, high, on the unbelievable chemistry of the performers, the performance, and the audience. THAT is why I love choral singing, because you can literally bring a composer back to life again and feel their presence with you and around you. True immortality! To me, there is nothing that resonates with me more than music, great music. It's the stuff that feeds my soul and it's why I love having an iPod so I can listen to hours of uninterrupted music of my own playlist choosing. Ah, sweet music! I've been listening to choral music all day on my iPod and it's making me want to sing in choirs again but right now, I just don't have the free time for it. Maybe when I retire in a few years, I will. I sure hope so.