Blasts from the Past

     I used to think reunions weren't my thing. I thought they were only for people who were happy in high school and had nothing but great memories—in other words, class reunions were for football players, cheerleaders, class officers, and the "popular set." I was none of those things (bet you could have guessed I didn't play football). No, the only bright light for me was choir. Choir I knew how to do. Choir was my lifeboat in the dark, turbulent waters of high school. But even my good memories of choir weren't enough to entice me to wade through the crowd of "others" in search of a small handful of fellow choir geeks.

     So it shouldn't be surprising that I haven't attended any of my class reunions, and there have been several, both major and "mini." Granted, I sometimes had legitimate excuses; for instance, I couldn't go to the big 20th because I was in Italy at the time, but I did order the book for which I and my classmates wrote short summaries of our lives since graduation. I was rather proud of mine, as I thought it a sort of vindication for the negative social status and miserably low grades that marked my high school career. "Choir Geek Makes Good in Major World-Class Opera Company." It is a sad aspect of my character that puts so much importance on other people's opinion of me. I've never been able to do anything, anything at all, without wondering how it would look to other people. But at least I'm aware of this shortcoming, and it is indeed a shortcoming—it's called pride.

     One of the things that can conquer self-pride is love for others. Last weekend, there was a reunion, not of my class, but of my high school choir. I couldn't participate in the concert they literally threw together willy-nilly, but the temptation to see after so many decades some of my old choral comrades was just too great. So when they went to lunch between rehearsals for the concert, I joined them, literally for just an hour; but that hour was one of the happiest I've had since November 4, 2009 (you're probably wondering what happened on that date, but I'm not telling, and please get your mind out of the gutter!). This sounds so terribly cliché, but everyone looked exactly as I remembered them. That's because I was looking at them through, to quote Frasier, "love goggles." These people made high school tolerable for me, and I loved them for it.

     A couple of days later, I made a date for coffee with one of them. She and I didn't really get a chance for a good chin wag at that flying lunch, but we certainly made up for it over our laid-back coffee at Starbucks. She brought with her a copy of my book of juvenile poems and song lyrics which I had given her as a graduation present. My own copy of the book, and it was the only copy I had, went missing back in the '80s. Needless to say, I'm thrilled to have my old poems and lyrics again, horrible as they are. Believe me, they are horrible. But since I threw out all my adolescent journals during a fit of depression in college, these horrible things are the only written record of those turbulent years. So they are very, very precious to me, like a bratty kid whom you love anyway because he is your child. And my friend was everything I remembered her to be: one of the sweetest, kindest people I know.

     I came away from that weekend with the conviction that there should only be specified reunions of choirs, bands, football teams, pep squads, drill teams, clubs, etc. You can keep the big, general class reunions. But I'm only speaking as one for whom high school wasn't a generally great experience.

    

The Anxiety-Ridden Chorus Master

     It is one of the greatest ironies of my life that I spent so much of it working with choruses, given that I've always had a deep-rooted aversion toward that job. I wrote before that I was enlisted at a very early age (third grade) into accompanying for school choir concerts; by the time I was in middle school, I was official accompanist and rehearsal pianist for our mixed choir and madrigal group. (It wasn't until seventh grade that my choir director discovered I also had a good voice and had me sing in all the a cappella pieces.) Had I known that being rehearsal pianist also meant actually taking over in the absence of the choir director, I would have turned tail and run.

     There was one particularly painful day in the eighth grade when Miss E. had to be absent and she asked me to take the class, with one of my classmates at the piano. My pianist belonged to that elite group of pretty, popular girls that lived in the richer neighborhood; they were already under the impression (thanks to the veneer of cool aloofness behind which I hid my social anxiety disorder) that I thought my musical gifts made me superior to everyone else. In truth, she and her group, many of whom were in the choir, intimidated me to the point that I was certain my nervous shaking was visible to all as I took my place that day behind the director's music stand. I had to stand there in front of all those "prove yourself to us" faces and the ill-concealed smirk of my pianist, push my anxiety as far down into my shoes as I could, and just give it my best. I got through that agonizing hour, but not without witnessing, after the bell rang, my pianist and her friends giggling and mimicking my nervously rigid conducting gestures. Perhaps anyone would have been hurt by this, but I was a hyper-sensitive child with low self-esteem; a more confident child would probably have shaken off the dust from her shoes and moved on. As it was, the wound they inflicted that day, perhaps unconsciously, rankled deep in me through my year as student director for our high school choir, and much later throughout my fifteen years as Assistant Chorus Master at the Houston Grand Opera. Not even the genuine affection and respect the HGO Chorus and I had for each other could quite cure my aversion for running rehearsals and sectionals.

     Behind it also were the high expectations of my teachers and elders, my own high standards (which grew more and more impossible with each passing year), an enormous fear of failure, and the equally enormous if irrational fear of being found out as a sham. For all my talent and training, and all my bravado, I was still at the core that awkward, inept, and insecure child.

     You might be asking why, then, I consented to be HGO's Assistant Chorus Master. Deep down, I knew I could do it, and do it well. I had all the necessary tools for what that job entailed, including, by that time, good conducting skills (thanks to lessons from two gifted and generous conductors, Ward Holmquist and Patrick Summers). And I had the unflagging support and confidence of the Chorus Master, Richard Bado, for whom I had, and will always have, tremendous respect. So I forced myself to ignore the sickening churning in my stomach before every rehearsal and sectional I had to run, and told myself (to quote my fellow S. A. D. sufferer, Mr. Darcy) "I will conquer this!" And conquer it I did. That terrified young girl who was mocked by her peers grew up to be a good Assistant Chorus Master (and, for some shows, Chorus Master) -- even if she never really liked being one.