What Teachers Live For (with inadequate, heartfelt thanks to Ethan Sperry)

I don't have sufficient words to express my gratitude for this; they fail utterly.

*****

Hi Dr. Dehning,

First of all, I so wish I could have been at the USC Reunion. I'm so glad it was such a huge success and I hope that means it leads to others. With 2 small kids and your reunion falling right before my own choir's tour, another weekend away from the family wasn't in the cards this time.

So I just got back from the best musical experience of my life so far - actually one of the best experiences of any sort I've ever had. I took the Portland State Chamber Choir on tour to Italy for 12 days at the end of which we competed in the Seghizzi Competition with choirs from 21 different countries. You probably saw this on Facebbok, but somehow, we not only won the entire competition (which no American choir has ever done in the 52 years this competition has been running), but we won 14 other awards as well.

This is in large part thanks to you. Many choirs at the competition sang much harder repertoire than we did. And I mean MUCH harder repertoire. They also had a lot more flash to what they were doing. We sang a much wider diversity of repertoire, and we sang it with real understanding and communication. Much of the repertoire we sang I learned from you (this is true of almost every concert I do by the way). I not only learned about it, but I learned how to understand it and bring it to life.

In our 20th Century set we sang Pizzetti's Piena Sorgeva la Luna

In our 19th Century set we sang Verdi's Pater Noster (and I think this piece won us the competition)

In our Spirituals set we sang Precious Lord (which is still my favorite arrangement of any spiritual)

In our Folk Music set we sang Hark I Hear the Harps Eternal (which we sang on my first day in Chamber Choir with you in 1996)

THANK YOU for standing up for the greatness our best choral literature

THANK YOU for teaching me why it is great and teaching me how to teach others this as well

THANK YOU for being a relentless advocate for beauty in the world

I was going to end this letter there, but I'm going to try and say something more substantial. Not sure if it will work. I would be writing this letter even if we had come in last place in the competition. The choir made HUGE breakthroughs on how to sing together at the beginning of the tour well before the competition. This (as you know) often happens on tour and is its own reward, and I think we all enjoyed our pre-competition concerts as much if not more than competing.

The effects of the way we were singing were profound on the singers and on me. We all began treating each other differently. I know that every person on that tour (36 of us) truly loves everyone else we shared that experience with. There was a universal sense of acceptance and a willingness to be vulnerable that changed us all as musicians and people. The amount of pure joy we shared with each other and will continue to share with each other and anyone else we come into contact with is immense and it makes the world a better place. I wanted to share this with you if I could, because I think you are one of the few people I know who would actually understand what I'm talking about.

Love,
Ethan

Reuniting in Manhattan Beach

I have never written anything here about my professional engagements since retirement and am not sure why.  Maybe because I didn't set this blog up until retirement; maybe because I wanted this to be personal not professional.  If they wanted professional they could go to my website. As if anyone cared, anyway.  I gotta admit that I am still embarrassed by the egoism blogs represent and in many ways I still don't know what purpose they might serve.  Then someone tells me to 'blog more,' confusing the hell out of me.

So this one is professional, except I didn't get paid to do this one.  First the food, my goodness: Rob Istad's self-sponsored reception on Thursday night at the hotel after the first rehearsal (booze included!); a fantastic group meal of Greek food on Saturday night after the last rehearsal at Petros restaurant (including margaritas and sangria!); a lineup of fish tacos with all the trimmings after the performance organized by Karen (cash bar, booze not included, but this Silverback Ape didn't have to pay for a single drink!).  Not to mention the many meetings at Grunions bar at all hours; this is a funky neighborhood joint a half block away from the hotel where everyone seemed to know everyone else--the best kind of bar, in other words.

Now imagine 24 singers, one accompanist, one conductor working for 11 hours on Rheinberger Mass for Double Chorus (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo), Martin Mass for Double Chorus (Kyrie, Credo), a Gabrieli double chorus madrigal, Lauridsen Mid-Winter Songs I and IV, Victoria Vere languores nostros, Holst Nunc dimittis, and two fine Trashy pieces stuck into the middle of the program. Then a performance to a big crowd packed into that little Lutheran church that simply didn't know when to quit applauding once they started. And they kept starting. 

I'm talking, of course, about last weekend's USC Chamber Choir Reunion (Dehning Years) that was an event for the ages, at least my ages.  Karen Schrock Simring was the inspiration and ringleader who simply wouldn't take no for an answer; Rob was the on-site organizer who got the church for free, sent copies of my scores to all twenty five people, and took charge of all logistical matters for all four days.  The rehearsals were a triumph: every suggestion I made was accepted and performed immediately.  That's never happened before, really.  And the performance was the best rehearsal to the third power: every move I made was immediately and correctly deciphered.  And the audience bought every second of it.

You'd think that would be enough and the end of the story.  But it ain't. I expected they would love seeing their colleagues and friends again and rehearsing fine music together.  And they did. What I didn't expect was that they wanted to rehearse great music with me, their former conductor and teacher, in front of them; that's the main reason they were there.  That's simple professional respect, though.  But the many expressions of love--there is no other word--of me as a person were utterly unexpected and more gratifying than it is possible to relate here or anywhere else. 

They love me.  Holy cow.

I cannot relate how wonderful that makes me feel. I lack the vocabulary. 

ACDA, YAY!

I owe ACDA a lot.  The first national convention was in 1971 at the Hotel Muehlebach in Kansas City.  I attended. It had been chaired by USC's Charles Hirt, and I was in my first year of teaching at Northern Michigan University in Marquette.  Then the first divisional convention I attended was the next year in Indianapolis.  Our NMU kids got chosen to sing there that year and Charles Hirt was there to hear them (the three-year rule came later, luckily for me).  All of which went a long way toward landing the position at UOP the very next year.  Many years later, the performance by the California Choral Company at the '91 national in Phoenix had much to do with my going to USC, in part because Morten Lauridsen had heard them and came backstage and badgered me into applying for the opening, which I did the following Monday.

But all of that is just politics.  More important for me--as it is for anyone in this business--was what those meetings did and continued to do for me musically and technically, especially during the formative years of my late 20s and 30s.  For one thing, the convention attendance was small enough to fit into a hotel ballroom; you got a chance to talk to everyone sooner or later, and everyone heard and saw everything the convention had to offer.  Thus there was only one 'track' and everyone was on it. We had breaks for lunch and dinner.

When I started in this business, the only recordings one could find were Messiah, the Verdi Requiem, and Carmina.  Oh, and the Shaw Chorale BMinor. The only amateur choruses we heard on those recordings were the Mormon one and the Westminster one. So the only place to hear the entire canon of choral music done by choirs we all might conduct one day was in person at a concert or at a professional convention.  Nowadays, of course, there isn't much that hasn't been recorded, professional choruses abound, and collegiate choruses have utterly taken over.  I began to learn at these events that there was a lot of superb music that wasn't written for orchestra and chorus. I began to learn that choral music had the largest body of literature. Most of it was sacred, but I didn't care about that then and I don't care about that now: great music is great music.  What sticks in my mind from that first convention now were Schütz Psalm 98, Bach Singet, and Schönberg Friede auf Erden.  I'd never heard them anywhere else: Talk about opening my ears!  We even heard a fine junior high choir do the Hindemith Six Chansons (try to find that nowadays).  This is not even to mention Frank Pooler's Long Beach State crowd doing all the wiggy composers such as Folke Rabe and the like.  Pooler had a lock on that stuff as well as the Carpenters (I won't talk about his Mendelssohn, though).

So naturally I heard a lot of different takes on choral sound and attended a lot of interest sessions in which folks talked about how they achieved that sound.  The only sound I really had firmly embedded in my ears at that point was Hirt's USC Chamber Singers and I knew that my 18 NMU kids weren't going to approach the sound of those 16 USC semi-pro honkers.  I had to look and listen elsewhere.

One of the places I was fortunate to listen was the Pacific Southwest Intercollegiate Choral Association festival held annually in SoCal.  I participated in four of them during my time at CalState LA (one year) and USC (three years).  I heard college choruses conducted by, in no specific order, Howard Swan, Paul Salamonivich, Bill Hall,  Dave Thorsen, Frank Pooler, Fran Baxter, plus a bunch whose names I no longer remember, but it was the entire spectrum of the West Coast sound and nowhere did one hear the neutered Lutheran straight tone sound, which is the cousin of that antiseptic Texas high school choral sound.  No, the sound of all of the choruses was truly vibrant. Many of them performed in ACDA nationals in subsequent years, usually to great acclaim.

I have nothing against MENC and its state offshoots or the various state 'vocal associations.'  They do fine work, especially for the classroom teachers and band directors.  But as Roger Wagner said to Charles Hirt in the elevator at that first ACDA convention: "Damn, Charles, it sure is great not to have a bunch of band directors running around!"  Those ACDA meetings were all about choral music then and they still are. 

I'm sorry to say that I was never a 'networker' or a politician of any stripe and I'm not bragging, I'm complaining: I'm convinced that had I been a bit freer with the handshake and the small talk, I probably would have gone farther, sooner, in my field.  But I was there for the music, the conductors, the sounds, the bull sessions, the demonstrations. 

That was then.  Now I care more about seeing people I have met over the years, and of course, the former students from the three schools where I taught for nigh unto four decades.  Of course I always look forward to hearing some of the finest collegiate choirs the country has to offer. 

And by golly, I can think of maybe a couple times that groups I conducted were maybe even numbered among them.

Here's to ACDA for helping and promoting some of the best in the art form from Womb to Tomb: kids choirs, middle school choirs, high school choirs, church choirs, collegiate choirs.  We would not be where we are without such a fine umbrella organization.

CHAMBER CHOIR REUNION

27-30 June, Manhattan Beach, CA for rehearsals and a performance of Rheinberger, F. Martin, Brahms, Vittoria, among others.  Karen Schrock, Kelley O'Connor and Erin came up with this idea in a Huntsville gay bar about four years ago and Rob Istad leaped gleefully aboard.  Karen and Rob have done an immense amount of work already, with more to come.  We must have a balanced group, so contact Karen: karen.schrock@gmail.com to reserve your place.  Trinity Lutheran Church has agreed to host us for rehearsals and performance, and Karen has lined up motel rooms within walking distance of the church (and the beach; we can't rehearse all the time).  She will need $150 to reserve your place; this is an estimate for group dinners in restaurants and any amount not used will be returned.  You must reserve your room by 27 May to get the group rate Karen has negotiated.

Please help us by spreading this word to as many of the members from the years 92-07 as you can.  Use Facebook, too.

I am flattered and humbled by this effort.  I hope to see and hear a bunch of you sing some great music together again.  It's been too long. 

And let your conductor acquaintances know that a bunch of the music we'll be rehearsing is in my latest book, A Matter of Choice: Interpreting Choral Music.  They may wanna give a listen.

Fight On!  Or. . . Sing On!  Or. . . something . . . 

ACDA Conferences

This is the first year since 1991 that I have not attended that bienniel conference.  That's 22 years and 11 conventions, and I performed or presented at 4 of those 11.  My reasons for not attending this year are financial (my younger daughter got married on the Big Island this year, and it all comes out of my own pocket now that I am unemployed) and not concerns about ambulation, just in case you wondered and I hope you did.

Anyway, I just got off the phone with my talented, gregarious wife, who made me feel really good about the number of my colleagues in Dallas who either asked about me or said nice things about me, including two of my absolute favorites, Ron Staheli and Simon Carrington (who enjoyed my latest book), neither of whom is a former student.  Speaking of the latter, it's great to hear of the number  of those who asked after me also, in addition to strangers who just know my name or my books or who heard CCC and USC perform from '91 to '05. I understand that some folks are going to invite me to do some clinical or conducting work in Korea and elsewhere now that I'm able to be up and about, in a manner of speaking.  I have missed that; my last engagements were in December of '10 (Taiwan) and February of '11 (PA) both of which I enjoyed tremendously and all seemed pleased with me, too.  I look forward to more.  And I hear that someone may be interested in an interview and an article about me.  Ah, jeez (shuffle, wince, avert eyes).

***

Someone once said that we only appreciate with absence.  I have found that to be true: When folks are around, we take them for granted or worse; when they're gone we wish they were back.  I feel that way this week, actually: I don't miss the performances at ACDA this year (I've done much of the music, including the Britten, and don't really care to hear much of a lot of the rest unless it's Bach) but I do miss seeing the people I know and meeting people I don't.  I have had an immensely rewarding career, but barely better than some and not nearly as good as many.  I don't have any illusions about my professional worth or my contributions to the profession.  And I'm really shy among strangers.  Really.  Also nervous.  Also insecure because I assume that most are better than I and I don't know how to blow my own horn; I don't even know the fingerings, truth be told.

But I still enjoy seeing folks I have known since my full-time collegiate career began back in 1970 (it was all church work and academic stuff before then, and many of those folks are now dead--I was a real whippersnapper).  I was a star in grad school: Hirt and Vail had me start a new chorus and asked me to teach conducting; I was asked to conduct the Concert Choir when Vail went on sabbatical in '68, which included preparing a chorus for an orchestral concert conducted by Ingolf Dahl that included Webern's Das Augenlicht, but those days are long gone.

The only thing left is guest work and ACDA conventions (and, of course, the great meetings of NCCO, with which I had a little bit to do). 

So I will do my utmost to not miss any more.

Deo gratias, say you.  Cheers, say I.

Choral Conductors Facebook Fishing?

I use the FoxNews technique of the question mark in the title because, like them, I have no specific evidence for my claims.  I could also use their 'some say' technique also, but again, have heard nothing at all from anyone about what I'm going to say here.  I may stick with question marks just for giggles.  And it is entirely possible, probably even likely, that I am way out on a limb with this one.

***

Is anyone besides me getting annoyed with the current trend of choral conductors throwing out lavish compliments onto Facebook after a gig or performance?  'Last night's performance of the Intergalactic Honor Choir was a thrill, thanks to the preparation of the directors involved, especially Karl Koral, who organized the event.  It was an honor to conduct them.'  This kind of post invariably elicits the return compliment of 'we couldn't have done it without your planetary genius.'  And how about announcing every pissant thing we do and then posting a picture of the plaque or certificate we received?  And how do you feel about the conductor who announces how grateful, honored, or, most gag-inducing of all, blessed they are to be standing in front of their charges and leading them, which is only what they were hired and are paid to do? 

And my favorite: I learn more than I teach.  I have learned a few things from the individual choruses I have conducted over the years, but there was never any doubt in my mind that I knew a helluva lot more than every one of them or I would have gotten out of the business.  And I always taught more than I may have learned. (This is not to deny the  insecurity that afflicts all of us).

These falsely modest devices seem to be simply subterfuges for bragging, first of all, but--more important--mere fishing for compliments: they are so lucky to have you; we couldn't have done it without you; working with you is an artistic revelation and more fun than sex.

Is this just sour grapes on my part?  Could be.  I never had FB to post my glories, coddle my students, be publicly grateful to all involved.  I had to use actual letters in the mail, or later, the occasional email.  Point is, no one saw it but them.  And I didn't thank them, I complimented them, which is what they really wanted.  I wrote these letters throughout my career, beginning with my last LA church choir, 1966-1969. 

Who would be hurt by foregoing FB and simply sending an email to the gig chair, the ensemble?  Why isn't this done more?  Why do we have to publicly demonstrate how diplomatic, Christian, grateful, honored and blessed we are?  Is there something wrong with keeping it private and in the family?  And qui bono by making it public?  Hmmmm?

***

I finish with questions, too: What the hell ever happened to self-effacement or--saints preserve us--genuine modesty?  Am I the only one left who was raised by Lutherans, who was taught to never have an exalted opinion of oneself or, if so, to at least have the decency to keep it to oneself?

PS: this post is dedicated to Miguel Felipe ('blog more') and Christian Campos ('where's the professional rant?)

Mini Diary; Lack-of-Progress Report

It's been a while and I must make apology to my Followers; all four of them.  I have been both lazy and a bit busy. My younger daughter, Megan, got married at Kealakaua Bay on the Big Island on the day of the Winter Solstice.  It was a gorgeous partly native, partly Jewish, mostly Pagan ceremony overlooking the bay.  It was also the first time in five years that the family (including Marge, my ex-wife) was all together.  Both Libby and Megan are smart, beautiful women and I am very proud of them.  Meg lives on the Big Island, by the way, and from the wedding attendance, it's apparent that everyone on the island loves either her or her husband or both.  We ate the whole pig and finished two kegs!  Erin also took advantage of the the resort hotel where we stayed: massage, pedicure, facial, yoga.  And of course, we ate like royalty but without the treasury; Eurasian food is a real joy.

*****
 Prior to that time I did a choral festival at Biola University in LA in November that was a lot of fun, and where I had fine Korean food (ain't none of that around here, despite the strong LG presence) with two former students, Christian Campos and Joe Paguio. It was also great to see and hear the work of former students Shawna Stewart, Michelle Jensen and Shannon Mack.  And a perfect stranger sitting next to me at my judge's table asked me to sign his copy of my first book.  Blew me away.  Speaking of books, my second (and last), A Matter of Choice: Interpreting Choral Music, was published in early December and is available in both paper and e-format.  The profit for me is better at createspace.com, but if you insist, you can also find it on Amazon, of course, as well as what's left of Barnes and Noble.  Mazeltov to me.

*****

We flew RT from Chicago to Kona and back, arriving home on the 23 December and drove from Chicago to Green Bay, where we spent Christmas and New Years with Erin's wonderful family (well, mostly wonderful; some of the Rabid Republicans can be hard to take, but mostly they have learned to either ignore us or stay away from politics.  We ain't always easy to get along with either).  Her parents and siblings are utterly delightful and her bro has become a better cook than I, which is saying something but I'm not sure what.

*****
Now Erin is back to work and I am back to my domestic and Recovery Routine, which now consists of bi-weekly physical therapy, trucking around the house with only one crutch, thrice/week work at the YMCA that includes four lower-body and six upper-body machines, for a daily total of 12.5k pounds of lifting, plus a few minutes on the recumbent bicycle.  Also, of course, visits to at least two specialists now and then, one of whom had predicted that he was 90% sure that I would be walking unassisted by now.  He was wrong: I am obviously a 10% kind of guy (hence the Macintosh).  My progress has leveled off and I still use two crutches when out of the house.  My physical therapist, whom I haven't seen since August, was really impressed with me this week, however, and she is an expert on spinal cord injuries, so she oughtta know, I guess.  My stretching/exercise routine four days/week is now up to almost 45 minutes per session and is really boring but necessary.  I sure wish I had the balance to resume yoga, but I would endanger not only myself but anyone within four feet of me.  I see the neurologist-who-failed-to-diagnose-my-condition next week to see if his current prognosis might again include walking unassisted.  I was told by my physiatrist (yeah, believe it or not) and PT person that my improvement would reach a plateau in a year and then slow down.  It has done both.  The anniversary of the corrective surgery is 2 Feb, but things are surely better: I am a long way from those first two months in a wheel chair, for which I am grateful, and will continue to do my utmost to improve further.  Fortunately, I have a very supportive wife and a delightful caregiver who is with me most of the time when Erin is at work.

Things could sure be worse.

*****

Hey!  If you read this, could you please leave a comment so I can take roll?  I'd love to know if I should abandon this and rely completely on Facebook, or keep this up.  Dunno what might be best: they are both ego-centric exercises after all.  I mean who REALLY cares about what I do or what I think?  Huh?  I mean, really . . .