I am spending this week in New York again, preparing for a concert at Carnegie Hall. You may recall that I worked with Carnegie Hall a few months ago on a recording project in which I sang the choral tenor lines from Carmina Burana for a learning track that they were sending out to students. The students are part of the “Carmine Burana Choral Project,” in which local students from all over the five boroughs are brought together for an amazing opportunity to sing at Carnegie Hall. I spent a day recording my parts, and thought that was the end of it.
As it turns out, and those of you who were in high school chorus might remember this, a very small percentage of the high school choral singers are male. Therefore, I guess for balance, Carnegie Hall has decided to hire some ringers for the concert, and since they know I know the piece, I am one of eight men being brought in to participate as well.
It is a funny thing, being in high school chorus again. Over and over again I have experienced a series of “Oh yeah” moments, when something would happen that reminded me of my own years at choral festivals and the daily rehearsals at school. The warm-ups, the arms stretching, the talk about homework, all of it so familiar, and yet so foreign to me at this point. But the thing that surprised me most was the awe.
I was seated next to, as you might have guessed, some high school students, and there was one moment, during the vocal warm-up, that one of the kids next to me just said in amazement, “Beautiful.” We were listening to the sopranos and altos hold two pitches of a chord after the men had dropped out, and this kid was in awe of that sound. Human voices joined together in perfect harmony, their sound pure and the room alive with youthful energy. And I did not notice any of this.
I hear that sound all the time. I go to church choir rehearsals. I go to opera chorus rehearsals. I sing in concerts and recitals and shows and productions. It’s my job. When I hear the women singing in the background, I think, “Good, I have a minute of vocal break before I have to sing again.” But I can’t help it. I am too used to that sound. It is all too familiar to me, and while I still enjoy music of course, maybe a bit of the magic is gone.
But for a few seconds last evening, I got it back. I remembered how much I loved to just listen to different voice parts sing warm-ups. I remembered how incredibly amazing it was the first time I participated in a choral festival and heard all of those voices together. Powerful. Strong. Beautiful. I remembered the chills that had previously run over my body, just from hearing a choral phrase sung so purely, and so correctly. High school me was sitting in the rehearsal last night, just for a moment, and then it was gone. Then it was just me, singing Carmina Burana again for the one billionth time. And it’s still one of my favorite pieces, and I still get chills sometimes from listening to it, or singing it, but they’re not the same kind of chills as I got the first time.