“Music and singing have been my refuge. And music and singing will be my light.”
—Frank Ticheli, Earth Song
In high school I started school every morning by singing in choir during the first period. While I was singing I could escape from the bullying, the stress of academics, and the pressure of being an athlete. Music allowed me to sink into the sound and out of my head. The need for music to soothe my soul continued into college, where I sang in a select chorale and an a cappella group.
Last weekend, I attended a college choral reunion, and I was transported back thirty years, watching my former director, or “DP” as we all called him, pull music out of a choir of middle-aged singers just as he once pulled it out of us as adolescents. His mannerisms hadn’t changed. His arms, his facial expressions, the way he showed us what he needed and what we needed to give—it was as if time had not moved forward.
Throughout the reunion weekend, I heard many stories of the history of the college choral program. DP arrived at the university in the early 1980s with a charge to rebuild the university choirs. Early on, he started a Christmas candlelight service, one that was recorded several times over the years, played on PBS, and was nominated for two Emmy awards. As a child who lived locally to the university, I attended in person – and I loved it.
It was magical. The soprano beginning “Once in Royal David’s City.” The “ringing in of Christmas” with the handbells stationed throughout the chapel. The congregational singing of “Silent Night.” It touched me spiritually and musically in a way I can still feel. Though we only attended once or twice, I watched it on television many more times, in awe of the music and the conductor who made it all happen.
Then, one year in high school, I was singing in the district chorus, and DP was our guest conductor. I recognized him as the person behind that amazing Christmas candlelight service. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a possibility started to take shape. What if I could sing for him? What if I could continue to be in a choir when I went to college?
By the time I landed on campus, I knew I was going to audition for the university chorale. Unfortunately, I was incredibly sick during auditions. It was that back-to-school time when germs circulate, especially among first-year students, and I could barely sing. I forced myself through the audition and left thinking it had been terrible. How could he choose me when he could barely hear whether I could match pitch, let alone whether there was any quality to my voice? I was honestly surprised when he put me in the choir. Despite my sickness, he saw something in me, and I am eternally grateful.
He placed me as an alto, even though I had been singing soprano for years. I never knew whether it was because I had auditioned with a frog in my throat or whether my soprano voice just wasn’t good enough to keep up with the rest of the girls. Regardless, for four years of college, twice a week I could go to rehearsal and escape into the music, under the direction of someone fabulous at teaching and pulling the musicianship out of us. I keep coming back to that word—pulling—because it is how I remember his directing. You could viscerally feel how his conducting arms and facial expressions pulled the sound he needed from us, whether it was the quietist pianissimo or the grandest forte.
At the reunion banquet, he invited alumni to share their stories. As people shared, I thought about my experiences. I remembered the first tour I took with chorale. After falling asleep by the pool and getting incredibly sunburned, I fainted during one of our concerts. As we were recessing, I just went down, and my friend picked me up and carried me down the aisle. Later, DP had to call my parents with the kind of opening no teacher wants to deliver: Kristen’s fine, but…
It was a funny memory, but as I thought harder about my history, I realized that the real story was that this program had been part of my life since childhood. I had watched from the audience, watched on television, hoped to join, and eventually stood among the singers.
And still, I have always felt inferior when it comes to my music. I have never had the self-confidence I probably should have. Even though I was well prepared by an amazing high school director, especially for someone growing up in a rural area, I walked into college feeling behind. I felt like I was always catching up, working hard to be on par with everyone else.
I felt some of that again last weekend. Coming back into this choral space after thirty years away, singing hard music with people who knew what they were doing, was intimidating. I chose to sing in the soprano section, as I had been singing soprano in a church choir for over a decade, and I was suddenly very aware that I wasn’t the leader I had been in my church choir. I wondered if I belonged.
But at the banquet, our conductor explained why he had chosen to work at a small liberal arts school rather than a conservatory. He wanted to work with students who, no matter what discipline they were studying, had a passion for their music. That was what he loved about directing. For thirty-two years, he made room for those students, and I was one of them.
I was chosen for a select choir. I worked hard, and I did a good job. I didn’t think of chorale as my family when I was in college. It was a place I went to sing and escape. Returning after thirty years helped me recognize that I was, in fact, part of a music family. And I belonged.
We sang “Earth Song” in the reunion concert, and its words struck me. Music and singing have been my refuge for most of my life. I could picture the high school girl starting her morning in choir, and the college student finding relief in rehearsal while wondering whether she was good enough to be there.
I could also hear something ahead of me in the words. This reunion closed a full circle of bringing singing back into my life. It started with the thirtieth reunion of my a cappella group, continued with a reunion for my high school choir director, and culminated in this reunion of my college choir. I returned to people who taught me, sang beside people who remember me, and made room for music in the life I am figuring out now. I am now filling one night a week with an oratorio choir, and, as in the past, singing brings both joy and escape. Music and singing have always been my refuge. And I know they can also be my light.
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