Where e'er you walk
Cool gales shall fan the glade
Trees where you walk
Shall crowd into a shade.
Classical music has always been an important part of my life. My performing career started when I was five and a choir boy in our local church. I wore a black robe with a white cassock, a wide white collar and a floppy bow tie. My solo career came when I was seven and singing Handel's "Halleluiah Chorus." At the end there are three halleluiahs followed by a dramatic pause and then a final halleluiah. I lost count and in the dramatic pause I bellowed "HAL". Everyone looked at me in shock.
I sang in the high school glee club, the Harvard Glee Club (first tenor) and the University Choir. Have you ever heard a sixteenth century motet sung by a men's choir? Such music would turn an atheist into a believer. Here is a recording of " O Magnum Mysterium": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeKvNxYMDxE The main functions of the choir was to sing in Memorial Church seven days a week. One of our less glorious moments came when we were invited to perform for the Harvard Club of Boston. Our hosts put us in a holding room with a huge vat of margaritas which we dipped into generously. When it came time to sing we were all loopy. Somehow we got it together and out came the deeply religious medieval motets. No one guessed our conditions.
In grad school I taught myself the recorder and played with a recorder club, Then at Putney School, where I went to teach English, I taught recorder to the children at the local elementary school and formed a recorder club with Putney students. We put on two full evening concerts. I was also the tenor soloist in the school's madrigal group. The music director at Putney, a wonderful man, liked to rehearse to the point my voice became hoarse. The thought of singing solos with a hoarse voice was so scary I had the habit of running ran off and hiding until my voice returned all the while avoiding the music director. Then, wearing my only suit and work boots I stood at the front of the orchestra and sang the first of many arias of Handel's Messiah "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people." In the audience of several hundred parents were, gulp, some famous musicians.
Not all my recorder performances were greeted with applause. When I was a hitchhiker in Mexico City, during my young and restless days, I played the recorder on the streets with my hat on the pavement, to support myself. I was doing quite well, but, as luck would have it, the police got wind of my activity, and arrested me for working without a permit. I was jailed for five days in solitary confinement and was eventually deported..
Fast forward to the 1990's: we started our son, Thabie, who was 10, on the piano, using the Suzuki method, and our daughter, Palesa, on the piano, using the traditional method. Palesa soon discovered her passion was the flute. As they flourished they gave recitals, giving me a chance to accompany them on the recorder. Thabie played annual concerts at my mother's retirement community with me playing along in the Bach minuets. When my mother passed away, Thabie, Palesa, and I played at her memorial service. My mother, who taught me my love of music, would have been pleased.
Palesa gave a high school senior recital where I joined her in a Handel trio sonata. Since then Thabie has become a professional musician with a Master's in music and a flourishing piano studio. Palesa played in the orchestra for a Harvard production of Mozart's "Cosi von Tutti" but then became involved in other interests.
I remember hearing "O Magnum Mysterium,' O Great Mystery, about the birth of Jesus, sung by a men's octet at George Mason University (where I was an usher) and thinking how could I ever have had doubts. I remember hearing the slow movement of Bach's third orchestral suite played by the Boston Symphony and marvelling that any music could be so beautiful. But these are mere words. Music is a universal language that needs no words to express our deepest feelings: joy, sorrow, mystery, love. It acts as unifying thread through the different chapters of our lives. It is a language understood equally in Germany, Russia, or India, understood " where e'er you walk."
I sang in the high school glee club, the Harvard Glee Club (first tenor) and the University Choir. Have you ever heard a sixteenth century motet sung by a men's choir? Such music would turn an atheist into a believer. Here is a recording of " O Magnum Mysterium": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeKvNxYMDxE The main functions of the choir was to sing in Memorial Church seven days a week. One of our less glorious moments came when we were invited to perform for the Harvard Club of Boston. Our hosts put us in a holding room with a huge vat of margaritas which we dipped into generously. When it came time to sing we were all loopy. Somehow we got it together and out came the deeply religious medieval motets. No one guessed our conditions.
In grad school I taught myself the recorder and played with a recorder club, Then at Putney School, where I went to teach English, I taught recorder to the children at the local elementary school and formed a recorder club with Putney students. We put on two full evening concerts. I was also the tenor soloist in the school's madrigal group. The music director at Putney, a wonderful man, liked to rehearse to the point my voice became hoarse. The thought of singing solos with a hoarse voice was so scary I had the habit of running ran off and hiding until my voice returned all the while avoiding the music director. Then, wearing my only suit and work boots I stood at the front of the orchestra and sang the first of many arias of Handel's Messiah "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people." In the audience of several hundred parents were, gulp, some famous musicians.
Not all my recorder performances were greeted with applause. When I was a hitchhiker in Mexico City, during my young and restless days, I played the recorder on the streets with my hat on the pavement, to support myself. I was doing quite well, but, as luck would have it, the police got wind of my activity, and arrested me for working without a permit. I was jailed for five days in solitary confinement and was eventually deported..
Fast forward to the 1990's: we started our son, Thabie, who was 10, on the piano, using the Suzuki method, and our daughter, Palesa, on the piano, using the traditional method. Palesa soon discovered her passion was the flute. As they flourished they gave recitals, giving me a chance to accompany them on the recorder. Thabie played annual concerts at my mother's retirement community with me playing along in the Bach minuets. When my mother passed away, Thabie, Palesa, and I played at her memorial service. My mother, who taught me my love of music, would have been pleased.
Thabie, Palesa and I play a Trio Sonata at my mother's retirement community
Palesa gave a high school senior recital where I joined her in a Handel trio sonata. Since then Thabie has become a professional musician with a Master's in music and a flourishing piano studio. Palesa played in the orchestra for a Harvard production of Mozart's "Cosi von Tutti" but then became involved in other interests.
Thabie in recital in the mid-90's
Palesa (with piccolo) marches with the high school band.in the Homecoming Parade
I remember hearing "O Magnum Mysterium,' O Great Mystery, about the birth of Jesus, sung by a men's octet at George Mason University (where I was an usher) and thinking how could I ever have had doubts. I remember hearing the slow movement of Bach's third orchestral suite played by the Boston Symphony and marvelling that any music could be so beautiful. But these are mere words. Music is a universal language that needs no words to express our deepest feelings: joy, sorrow, mystery, love. It acts as unifying thread through the different chapters of our lives. It is a language understood equally in Germany, Russia, or India, understood " where e'er you walk."
