7th Grade Choir Festival

I never actually was in the "Choir" at school, not if you take the meaning of the word to be the large, general-purpose collection of vocal music students who can fill a stage's worth of risers to blast your eardrums with a rousing rendition of The Hallelujah Chorus.

Rather, I was in a group which was kind of a "special" choir, a smaller, more select group of people with particular aptitude for harmony and syncopation. We had four people per part, mostly; no more than twelve to sixteen in the entire group, as I recall.

My admittance into the group was entirely Jan's fault; she convinced me it would be fun. Somehow. And she was right. There's nothing better than being in a select group of people who are particularly passionate about music.

Cheryl was in several choirs, both general and select. She started a lot earlier than I did. (Of course, she also played piano since she was knee-high to a grasshopper, so had a lot of musical background.) So there is vocal music in our blood. I had always hoped it would show up in our children as well.

Adam loves to sing in church, but he never pursued anything beyond that. He's a pretty good piano player, very creative, writes his own scores, that kind of thing. Which makes us both proud. But he wasn't interested (so far as I know) in choir.

James is the type of person who can pick up any instrument and figure out how to play it, mostly by ear. He has certain instruments which he pursues - clarinet, guitar, bass - but seems comfortable with just about anything. But he does not sing.

Deb used to sing quite a bit around the house. But I don't think I've ever heard her sing anywhere else (except maybe in the car). She plays piano, too, but gave up lessons years ago so that she could focus on flute instead. And she's been first chair flute for a long time. Somehow, that instrument seems to suit her. But she would not be in choir.

Mary plays piano and sings. She sings at home, she sings in the car, she sings at church, she sings a lot. She still takes piano lessons, but she also opted to be in choir at school. She enjoys it. She took part in the "Beauty and the Beast" musical at the middle school.

So when the Middle School Choir Festival came along, Cheryl and I couldn't resist signing up as chaparones so we could finally see one of our children perform in the traditional choir style. On a set of risers with a bunch of other kids, all of them singing those (in)famous choir songs in various languages. With a director out front waving her hands, just like we'd known in our own youth.

It was magical.

Since it is a Middle School choir, there are many children who aren't passionate about singing or music; some of them are taking the class because it's the only option they can stand, or they think it will be an easy class. You can tell which ones those are. They are always getting in trouble for attitude, talking, absenteeism, and a host of other disciplinary issues, including knock-down, drag-out fighting. It frustrates Mary that some of the kids aren't there for the joy of singing.

We tell her, it will get better.

Year by year, the chaff filters out, leaving only the true lovers of music. And that's when the choirs really get moving. I'm hoping she'll have a good experience with it. I'm hoping we'll be able to get her back into voice lessons. I'm hoping she'll eventually get into one of those special choirs where she'll be stretched and challenged and trained to the point where both she and her audience recognize her voice as a gift from God, and glorify Him through it.

And her parents will remain, as they are now, proud of what she has accomplished.

Her choir, despite a few disciplinary issues here and there, did very well in the evaluations. In fact, they were given a very special compliment by the sight-reading examiner, who said they were the best she had seen that day. It helps that they have a very good teacher who had given them some excellent tools for decomposing scores, and they hunkered down and worked very hard on a rather difficult piece in a very short amount of time, and I was amazed at how well they handled it. That compliment meant a great deal to me, and to them. I'm hoping it was enough to spur them on to further achievement.

We've been so blessed by our children's musical gifts and talents.