choirs, heavenly and earthly

In one section of Jan van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece, a choir of women cluster next to the throne of God and sing their saintly little hearts out. What I love about these women is the intense looks of concentration on their faces: eyebrows raised, foreheads creased, and jaws dropped low enough to create double chins and neck folds. I have heard three different theories for the singers' facial expressions, each from credible sources. You decide.

1) From a musicologist: each singer represents a different pitch in a particular medieval scale, best reached by certain facial contractions.

2) From me (based on my own experience in choirs): everyone in the group – with the exception of the snooty blond in profile at the top – is singing a B. She, with all the confidence and volume of a woman certain she is right while everyone else is wrong, is singing a B FLAT. Thus the sour expressions.

3) From my son Ethan: “They look like they’re all suffering from either constipation or diarrhea.”

I chose this painting to commemorate my unexpected encounter this weekend with one of my former identities: Julie the Choir Geek. After much arm-twisting from various friends, I agreed at the last minute to participate in a choir reunion concert at my old high school on Saturday night. My big regret was not attending all of the pre-concert rehearsals. Had I done so, perhaps I could have avoided the embarrassment of not knowing my part for a majority of the songs, but if there’s anything I learned from my years of choir participation it’s how to “fake it till you make it,” a time-honored coping skill that goes back as far as there have been choirs. (In fact, in the excavation of the music hall at Pompeii, archaeologists discovered bundles of papyrus with rows of notes followed by the Latin inscription fakatum ad facerem. I also predict that someday a musicologist will argue that even in van Eyck’s celestial choir, as determined by a careful study of the neck and mouth musculature and the lung expansions of each woman, only two of them are actually singing. The rest are mouthing the words and trying their best to look good.)

Fortunately, at the reunion concert, we sang a few old songs I knew. I could sing the alto part to the Battle Hymn of the Republic in my sleep and sometimes do. Never mind the fact that on Saturday I was singing alto in the middle of the soprano section because I wanted to stand with my friends. I tried to blend as best I could. I’m a good blender.

Looking back, I think my high school choir experience qualifies as one of the major miracles in my life. I still don’t know how I got there. I love music and sang in our church choir growing up, but I seriously don’t have a beautiful voice. And I’m not just saying that in hopes of being contradicted (like when I used to say “I’m so fat. I’m a horkin’ hippo!” all through adolescence when I was maybe 5 pounds over my ideal weight). When I say I don’t have a beautiful voice, I mean honestly I have a very average voice, no vibrato, no bright tone, no solo potential whatsoever. But I’m a good blender and once I learn the alto part, I make a decent contribution to a choir in a “hope nobody can actually HEAR me, but I’m going to sing all the right notes” kind of way, which is the only explanation I have for the fact that just before my senior year, I was selected to sing in both the A’capella choir and the elite Show and Chamber choir.

I spent the year questioning my right to be in either choir, especially Show and Chamber which was made up of the 19 best singers in the school, plus me. But I also spent the year singing gorgeous music and performing in front of crowds and making some of the best friends of my life. These were true friends who never once made me feel like I didn’t belong. Friends who could stack eight Oreos in their mouths (okay, so that was just Rick, but we all aspired to his greatness). Friends who never tired of telling me I in no way resembled a horkin’ hippo, despite my protests to the contrary. Friends whose idea of a good time was sluffing English in the back office of the choir room where we engaged in daily group naps relaxation therapy. Friends with whom I listened to the soundtrack of Chess so many times we had it completely memorized. Friends who recreated said soundtrack, complete with Russian and British accents where appropriate, at the top of our lungs in the halls, in the parking lot, and in the booths at Hamburger World, without the slightest hint of shame. Friends who bonded so closely in that year that several ended up married to each other (6 out of 20 actually). Friends who still get emotional when we talk about Danny, a member of our choir who died riding his motorcycle to his college graduation ceremony. Friends who sang with such beauty that on Saturday, when we got to a certain line in "Go ye now in peace" – a song we sang together at the end of every concert – I had to mouth the words, not because I didn't know that part but because I was so touched by the memories...

Know that the God who sent his son
to die that we might live
will never leave you lost and alone
in his beloved world

Somehow– call it luck, call it a fluke, call it an act of God (and I choose to think the latter)– I sure won the choir lottery and the friend lottery at the same time. I’m not sure how it happened but 20 years later I’m still grateful.