My Christmas Card - 2007; Silent Night in Fellows Garden
From time to time, I have written about Seraphim, the community chorus in which I sing. Choral music has always been my passion. I have either sung in and/or directed choirs since I was 14 years old. My high school music teacher left me to direct the 9th grade mixed chorus in front of the curtain while she prepared the A Cappella Choir behind the curtain on performance nights. For 4 years of high school I accompanied the chorus and she taught me how to direct the music. I was hooked.
I am an OK musician with a better than average choral baritone voice. I can play the piano and organ, but most of it is faking as my fingers don’t want to go where the music says they should. I should have practiced my Schirmer exercises. But it is enough to enable me to assist in a meaningful manner those who truly know what they are doing.
What people don’t understand about choral music is it is possible to get the same effect athletes describe as an endorphin rush. To be blunt, you can get high. It doesn’t happen often, but when you experience it, you want to do it again. Then you look for the high. It is not easy to come by, and it usually happens unexpectedly. When you are able to achieve it, it is like seeing a little bit of heaven. If you ever had a doubt God exists, sing the 4th movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony surrounded by 200 voices and a symphony orchestra, or Gounod’s Requiem in St. Columba’s Cathedral midst a Knights of Malta installation.
Sometimes it is in quiet music, in a small group: a chant in a chapel or singing How Great Thou Art in your church choir when the voices blend in a resonant chord that hits an exact tonal pitch that stays with you for days afterwards. The man who composed The Lost Chord knew what he was writing about.
I had such an experience with Seraphim this past Sunday. We were asked to sing at Fellows Riverside Garden for its Christmas in the Garden event. It is a beautiful building and was completely decorated with live trees everywhere you looked. The weather was nasty outside, and what was supposed to be a caroling event turned into an indoor adventure.
Kris, our outstanding director, is also a choral director at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. He had to participate in Christmas Vespers at the University that evening, so he asked me to pinch hit for him and try to herd the bunch of cats that is our choir. We had no accompanist, which meant that we were singing a Cappella. I had my doubts, resigning myself to an evening of singing unison Christmas carols.
From the first note they sang, I knew that this particular combination of voices was something special. We sang in the Gallery Room which resonated like a shower stall, open at both ends which acted as amplifiers into the rest of the facility. On pitch, with all parts, I was astounded as they sang song after song, with no accompaniment. I kept saying to them that they had no idea how good they sounded, and they looked at me like “Ya, what did you expect?”
Then it happened. I pulled out a version of Silent Night, which they had never sung before as a group. I asked them to give it a shot. And they started to sing, sight unseen, midst the decorated, lit trees in this acoustically perfect room. It was like a movie. On the third verse, one of the Sopranos ad libed a descant, and her gorgeous soprano voice soared above the choir. There was the high, and for a minute, heaven opened its door for a peek wrapped in that absolutely perfect combination of music, voices, and setting in total and complete harmony.
Will we sing it again? Of course, but never like we sang it on Sunday night, in a room full of art and Christmas trees, and candles all around us. The high always comes when you least expect it, and once achieved, becomes unachievable again. So we keep looking.
Merry Christmas.
I am an OK musician with a better than average choral baritone voice. I can play the piano and organ, but most of it is faking as my fingers don’t want to go where the music says they should. I should have practiced my Schirmer exercises. But it is enough to enable me to assist in a meaningful manner those who truly know what they are doing.
What people don’t understand about choral music is it is possible to get the same effect athletes describe as an endorphin rush. To be blunt, you can get high. It doesn’t happen often, but when you experience it, you want to do it again. Then you look for the high. It is not easy to come by, and it usually happens unexpectedly. When you are able to achieve it, it is like seeing a little bit of heaven. If you ever had a doubt God exists, sing the 4th movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony surrounded by 200 voices and a symphony orchestra, or Gounod’s Requiem in St. Columba’s Cathedral midst a Knights of Malta installation.
Sometimes it is in quiet music, in a small group: a chant in a chapel or singing How Great Thou Art in your church choir when the voices blend in a resonant chord that hits an exact tonal pitch that stays with you for days afterwards. The man who composed The Lost Chord knew what he was writing about.
I had such an experience with Seraphim this past Sunday. We were asked to sing at Fellows Riverside Garden for its Christmas in the Garden event. It is a beautiful building and was completely decorated with live trees everywhere you looked. The weather was nasty outside, and what was supposed to be a caroling event turned into an indoor adventure.
Kris, our outstanding director, is also a choral director at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. He had to participate in Christmas Vespers at the University that evening, so he asked me to pinch hit for him and try to herd the bunch of cats that is our choir. We had no accompanist, which meant that we were singing a Cappella. I had my doubts, resigning myself to an evening of singing unison Christmas carols.
From the first note they sang, I knew that this particular combination of voices was something special. We sang in the Gallery Room which resonated like a shower stall, open at both ends which acted as amplifiers into the rest of the facility. On pitch, with all parts, I was astounded as they sang song after song, with no accompaniment. I kept saying to them that they had no idea how good they sounded, and they looked at me like “Ya, what did you expect?”
Then it happened. I pulled out a version of Silent Night, which they had never sung before as a group. I asked them to give it a shot. And they started to sing, sight unseen, midst the decorated, lit trees in this acoustically perfect room. It was like a movie. On the third verse, one of the Sopranos ad libed a descant, and her gorgeous soprano voice soared above the choir. There was the high, and for a minute, heaven opened its door for a peek wrapped in that absolutely perfect combination of music, voices, and setting in total and complete harmony.
Will we sing it again? Of course, but never like we sang it on Sunday night, in a room full of art and Christmas trees, and candles all around us. The high always comes when you least expect it, and once achieved, becomes unachievable again. So we keep looking.
Merry Christmas.
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