In our time, community is not necessarily a given. We often distance ourselves from our families, childhood friends, our religious backgrounds and our parents' expectations. In the process of finding ourselves, we can easily lose our connection to others. I work at a Waldorf-inspired school, and one of the biggest themes of the education is to appreciate and utilize the unique talents of each individual, and simultaneously to bring each one, recognizing vast differences, into harmonious community. This is no easy task in any arena, be it with faculty and staff, board, parent community, or in the classroom. Often, when preparing for a challenging conversation or meeting, I think about Pacific Mozart Ensemble as a great example of successful community at work. Here, at every level, there is enthusiasm, responsibility, cooperation, and appreciation for each other…despite our "stuff" which will always be there. Preparing and performing our three scheduled concerts, which always include a huge scope of musical styles, and often a surprising variety of extra gigs is a tall order for people who work full-time jobs doing something else. Somehow, we manage to do just this year after year, and in the process have become a sort of large extended family as well as a smoothly running organization.
This fall, for the first time in several years, PME is performing a holiday concert (The Winter Canticles, featuring special guests Quartet San Francisco). Lovely! Not having sung holiday music for many years, I was curious to dig into the repertoire. I could imagine the old chestnuts and standard stuff from my college years, but was sure that we would be singing music much more challenging and fresh. Well, these pieces are stunning; it is going to be a concert not to be missed. We are performing in many small groups as well as in an ensemble of the whole, and the variety of music will make for a most interesting and inspiring concert. Usually we perform our fall concert in November, and this, being a holiday concert, is midway into December. Consequently, we have a relatively luxurious time to prepare.
As alto section leader, I am grateful for the extra couple of weeks. It can be tricky to support and inspire the section to be well prepared and feel excited, as well as help us to sound our best. Early in the fall the whole group attended all-day retreat at which two wonderful singing teachers (Susan Witt-Butler and James Toland) worked with us on vocal technique and German pronunciation, so we had a substantial experience of conscious singing. In preparing for the alto sectional I solicited suggestions from the mezzos (a more correct term for the voice type of the singers in the alto section) for how to use our time together, and received a couple of recommendations for voice teachers. In the end, I decided that we would better use our time to put into practice what we were already given at our retreat. So we used our time to review and practice what she had brought, to share relevant techniques from our personal voice teachers, with an ear to the particular vocal challenges of this concert, and to work on some challenging passages. As always, I was quite happy with our overall sound and grateful for how generous and cooperative my colleagues are, particularly when being subjected to exercises that I think might be helpful. We are an extremely genial bunch who truly respect each other's talents, enjoy each other's company, and are interested in each other's contributions, so the two or so hours sped happily by. An "Alto Cosmo (pink martini) Party immediately followed the sectional. These parties, at which we drink cosmos out of a variety of special martini glasses and eat delicious munchies, are fast becoming a beloved tradition in our section. Thank you, Gretchen and Emily! We began with nibbles and cocktails just for us. In an hour or so were joined by other "peemers" (members of PME) and friends for an enjoyable evening.
This was a solid start, but some of the members of the section wanted to have a mezzo "note-learning" session too. Often we work on this in extra rehearsals with the whole ensemble, but did not have any scheduled for this concert. Valerie took the reins and organized another Saturday session, this time devoted to repeating and learning passages for accuracy of pitch, rhythm, and dynamic…you know, getting it in your ear…followed by more eating, of course. Everyone who came felt it was time well spent, and indeed, we are singing with much more confidence now.
I have been feeling good about our overall preparation for the concert, but now that we are two weeks away, the devil is showing himself in the details. At the last rehearsal, we realized that we had not worked out the word underlay when we added German and English verses to the Finnish carol we will be performing, and instantly, at least three people stepped up to offer working it out for the section. Sure enough, within twenty-four hours, a revised score is ready to go out to our section and possibly the whole group. Thank you, Emily, Alexis, and Claudia. What a great team!
At my school, the board and faculty regularly recite this verse from Rudolf Steiner:
The healthy social life is found when,
In the mirror of each human soul,
The whole community finds its reflection,
And when, in the community,
The strength and virtue of each one is living.
Pacific Mozart Ensemble weekly strives to do this, and I think we do it very well. From many years of audience comments, we know that you sense something very special when listening to us make music. Often you say that it feels like we love singing with each other. Well, we do. Come to the concert and hear for yourself.
- Peggy Rock