“God respects me when I work, but She loves me when I sing.”
—RABINDRANATH TAGORE
“That which sings in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.”
—KHALIL GIBRAN
Farewell for now
January 1, 2006
To all our vocalists, past and present, and their families,
To our accompanists, composers, arrangers, and music researchers,
To our perennially faithful audience, fans, and supporters,
To our many donors, gracious benefactors, and advertisers,
To our sound engineers, photographers, media folks, and concert hall managers,
To our recording engineers, mixers, studio musicians, graphic artists, and printers,
To our house managers, ushers, box office, advance ticket outlets, and concessionaires,
To our set-up crews, break-down crews, equipment suppliers, and volunteers,
and to all the many beloved friends and family known and unknown,
1990 |
There has never been a very clear line where I end and Mount Madonna Choir begins. We have always been inseparable, joined at the soul. Three times and twenty the leaves have fallen since the fit to do this first came upon me. And over the years and the miles this choir has been my sustenance, my rock, my mirror, my retreat, my muse. It is still my clearest self-definition, the place I instinctively go to find my worth and ordained place in this confusing world. “What do you do?” |
…and it is the best of all possible introductions. It immediately tells my listener that I have been blessed with a useful purpose in life—that my labors have a quantifiable and tangible social, cultural, and artistic value. It tells them that I have chosen to pursue my passion and not my pocketbook. And most important, it gives us a starting place to open onto meaningful dialog, sidestepping the work-a-day commonalities, quickly moving on to bigger things. Mount Madonna Choir is not a just thing I do; it is a reason for being.
1996 - Ahwahnee Hotel, Yosemite National Park
Nearly every time I walk out of my house, I am greeted by strangers who know me well. They smile and thank me. They animatedly relive a choice moment in a concert they attended, be it recent or years gone by. They have been particularly touched by one of the songs, they say, brushing away a tear. They laugh once again at an old joke. They confide a secret wish that they, too, could find a way to share their creativity. They reaffirm the importance and timeliness of the choir’s message. They tell me of a parent or friend who played one of the choir’s recordings continuously in the days before their passing, or the part the choir played in a miraculous healing. Unknowingly, they validate my life.
And make no mistake, they also unhesitatingly tell me—in detail—what I am doing wrong and how I should fix it. You see, in buying a concert ticket or a CD, they have paid for my services, risked venture capital in my start-up, and they feel they own a piece of the action. The size of the piece doesn’t matter. Somehow it always proves large enough to justify any opinion, release any backed-up pressure, air any grievance. But in truth I don’t mind. It is a necessary, systemic part of a greater whole—a vital chromosome of this living cell called the Mount Madonna Choir.
The choir is also my tribe, my family, my peer group. It’s not so much populated with musicians, as with colleagues and officemates, mentors and pupils, parents and offspring, playmates and friends. And distinctly unlike any other family, here I have been given the rare opportunity to actually choose my relatives. To be sure, the usual gauntlet of family problems still rear their heads, but the all-important difference is this: there is no bemoaning my fate. I wasn’t born into this family. I am here by choice.
1999
Through the years, my deepest wish for the choir has not changed—that together we might create something that is pleasing to hear, celebrates what’s good about life, and for the singers and listeners to have fun in the process. Beyond this I have at least attempted to make the choir a safe harbor where everyone is seen and valued, and where music, laughter, and friendship are promoted in equal measure. To be sure, I know I have not always succeeded, and I sincerely apologize to those I have hurt. Yet remarkably, through the choir’s many triumphs and challenges, the bumps and turns, the occasional train wrecks and pleasant surprises along the way, we have always been able to say that our star is on the ascendant.
If someone were to ask for a list of secret ingredients, I expect it might read like this:
1. Good friends make good music. We are first and foremost a community of friends who are sincerely there for one another, musically and otherwise. By this, more than any other yardstick, have we measured our long success.
2. The audience is always right. Our guiding principle over the years has been to find music that reaches out and touches. We want our listeners to swing back and forth between laughter and tears, because the emotional moments of life are always the most memorable.
3. Like our body, the music can heal itself. It is equally important to focus on the presence and the feeling of a song, as on its precision. We give of ourselves to make this happen, but in fact each song has a life of its own. It’s not so much about singing, as letting the song sing us.
4. Don’t just put on a concert—create an event. For a concert to be truly memorable, it must be all-inclusive. Though it is not in the playbill, every warm body in the room is critical to the outcome, be they audience, ushers, concessionaires, box office, sound engineers or house managers. The choir just happens to be the ones doing the singing. Performances are a post-modern echo of the ancient oral tradition, and one of humanity’s most time-honored and person-to-person mediums. Standing on a simple stage we share as best we might, all that we have discovered about ourselves and our place in the world.
2004
It’s been a great ride, the best of the best. I cannot say if our story is completely written, but this chapter of Mount Madonna Choir has drawn to a close. Waking this clear winter morning, I knew it was time. When will we be back? I can’t say, but watch this space for further developments…
Lastly, I will admit that I am unashamedly proud of all we have done. I will stubbornly hold to the belief that we have brightened the lives of thousands, and that the rewards we have reaped along the way were richly merited. Beyond the brief threshold of this closure, I will always feel the choir’s presence, with neither life diminished, nor love halved, nor honor abated.
To borrow Paul McCartney’s line about his beloved Beatles: It were a grand thing,
Mount Madonna Choir, and like a distant star, its light will always have a small but sparkling place in the firmament.
With great love and undying gratitude to all,
Until next time . . .