The last few years have been hell for the choral arts.

I remember the February morning in 2020, in the practice room at Trinity Episcopal, the rumors that Harvard had closed it’s doors, and staff were to work from home until further notice.

That was the last time I was in the practice room. Haven’t been back to that space.

The Concord Women’s Chorus (which I had just joined in Fall of 2019 thanks to the suggests of some friends from the Church choir) did what everybody did. We improvised. The first semester we figured out zoom was a tough option for a choir. Our hearts weren’t in it the same way. Singing into empty space is not the same a being a voice together.

But there were specific concerns about choral singing where your breathe is intimate with everyone else’s. Where you fill your lungs and control that breathe for long phrases and spaces.

I skipped the 2020-21 year. My kids were voluntarily being instructed virtually, and it was too much for me. They embarked on a serious of virtual workshops to improve technique bc there was no chance of a performance.

I joined back in Fall 2021. The chorus was in person, masked, and spread out in the church sanctuary with the windows open. At first I took advantage of the virtual option. There were hopes of a winter concert, that were dashed as COVID cases in the area soared.

I started to come in person in the spring. Singing in the church sanctuary is lovely. It is a great acoustic space. The voices soar and resonate. When you are spread out (rather than in a practice room), you can really hear your voice and make adjustments. We geared up for the first performance back. I bowed out bc my husband was having surgery a few days before the concert. It went well without me.

Making up for lost time, an October concert was planned. We had commissioned a piece way back in 2019. The first composer did not work out. By some apparent happenstance the commission landed with Melissa Dunphy, words provide by Melissa Appearson ( a former choral member).

We did a program of works written for women to sing by women composers. As Melissa Dunphy said it is a political act for women to compose music, and doubly for them to compose for women as a group to sing. And for those women to sing it. Perhaps, women have a better (or at least different) sense of what works for female voices? Chaminade, in particular, wrote a few pieces we sang that sit in an almost perfect placement for my voice, singing the Soprano line. Some high notes, no to high to be shrill, but places to be powerful. I love that piece (excerpts from Messe pour deux voix egales, written toward the end of her life, sung by a choir split into two voices).

Melissa Dunphy recounted that she came to composing through theatre and almost by accident, and that when she started to write music she just knew that it was what she was suppose to be doing. I admire that confidence. She didn’t go to conservatory ( didn’t go the Berkele), didn’t ask for permission.

I admire that confidence. I do no have it. Have never had it. I am a ball full of doubt.

“I love, I love this girl. Her tendril touch and climbing dreams. Her willingness.

I am not her mother though. I am not the luxurious meadow.

We are one, the girl and I. 

Grown up, Grown Wild”