Even though we will be working through the summer, we won't be singing through the summer, so I am filled with the end of year, end of an era blues. The founders now scatter off to college, and we look to the future with the choir which has formed beneath their feet...the choir proper, no more founders among us to lead and point the way. We are on our own.
And we will be okay.
Next year will bring some amazing new challenges:
- ROME!
- Mass TWICE a month!
- Beginners who will learn to sing as a blended choir
- The graduation of two more of the earliest members of the choir
- Another Pueri Trip
- Learning the Latin Ordinary and singing it in context FINALLY
- Figuring out where we go from here
I have been privileged to watch these fantastic young people grow through the darkest of adolescence into hopeful fledgling adults about to take on life and the world. I am deeply proud of all of them, and of each step of the journey. So much silly fun, so many moments of discovery and the sheer joy of figuring out that if you PRACTICE, you really do GET BETTER at a thing, even a thing like singing.
Often, with my own family, I play this difficult game of "What was your favorite moment?" For me, it remains the singing of "Nunc Tempus Acceptabile" because it is beautiful and because we were given it to sing by the composer himself, and because we worked so hard on it. It comes from the period before the man voices showed up and made us a mixed choir, in the old times of trebles singing separately from our guys while we patiently waited on their voices to settle. My second favorite moment of all time was at State Honor Choir during "Signs of the Judgment" when I could HEAR Sean singing "Gotta be" loud and clear and resonant and confident and I could see James' beaming smile as he and a BUNCH of other basses boomed out "better be ready for that great day".
Other happy times happened as we were working together...bead n' bakes, banquets, dishes and more dishes, dinner theatres, and bracelets. There were a LOT of those times.
Some things will never change. If you are in a choir I am directing, you WILL work HARD. Both at music and at service, and you WILL learn why we sing at Mass the way WE do, and you will find friends along the way. "Mama" will still occasionally go "boom" when people are being adolescent jerks, and we'll all work with each other toward community and forgiveness and growth at all times.
Thank you, SRYC, and parents and friends of the choir, for an amazing journey so far. I look forward to the road ahead.
Mrs. Carleigh
0 comments:
Post a Comment