Once a singer, always a singer

I attended my first choral concert in the DC area last night. A friend of mine from the Senate is in the Congressional Chorus, and she was performing in her first major concert with this group. The concert was entitled Rediscovering Treasures and the chorus was scheduled to be singing American choral works from the Library of Congress (only in DC, right?), so I was extremely excited to attend.

A carload of us ventured to McLean, VA to see Christie perform. Luckily we left extremely early, because we detoured not once, not twice, but three times on our way to the venue, nearly died trying to get on the interstate, ran into the G-20 summit motorcade, and almost got stuck in someone's private drive. The 12-mile *road trip* proved to be our main excitement for Saturday night, as the concert itself was a slight let down.

Okay, it sounds mean of me to say, but I had really high expectations. From the information on the Congressional Chorus website about try-outs, annual fees and repertoire, I assumed this group was quite a professional chorus. And for $25 per person, I don't think expecting a fabulous performance was too far fetched. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I went to support Christie and hear the group. However, I realized that my voice training (amateur as it may be) has led me to a different style of singing. With a Luther alumnus as my initial voice coach/high school director and singing at a college known for its opera program, I'm used to a full, rich, well-tuned sound. Although I may never have been the strongest singer in these groups, I'm not used to hearing anything other than what I now realize to be great music. This concert took me back to my high school freshman year women's choir days.

Though I'm sure many of the individual members of the Congressional Chorus are fine singers, as a whole, they have room for improvement. If you aren't a singer yourself, please ignore my jargon for a moment...but the consonent placement was all over the place, the audible gasps for breath support were horrendous at times, and a handful of members were overly animated at all times. I tried to keep my cringes at a minimum, and at one point, I was tearing up while trying to hold back my laughter (reacting to the animation of a baritone in the front row). If I were a member in this group, I definitely would not have wanted to see myself sitting in the audience. Apparently I am a stuck-up choral critic, and I had absolutely no idea! And when my friend, Christie, asked me about the performance, I just couldn't lie. She didn't seem offended by what I was saying, as she genuinely wanted to know what I thought, but I do feel somewhat guilty for being disappointed.

In thinking about my strong reaction to this concert, in addition to my frustration of singing hymns from a few centuries ago at mass, I realize that I miss the music exposure I had while at Simpson. Even after my days of Chorale, I still had Immersion with Bridget and/or Rach by my side each week. Although I know that time has come and gone, I am doing my best to find new such things that bring me joy. Last week I attended Frontline with Elizabeth, and I was ecstatic to find out that it was so similar to Immersion. We sang familiar contemporary Christian songs and the message was delivered in the same manner, all that was missing was communion and a few sending songs. So I look forward to attending this service with Elizabeth in the future, and I hope it provides my music fix!