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Unexpected GiftsDate: August 30, 2010
Just experienced a moment of numinous, ineffable grace .... slowed down my day, sat, closed my eyes, and listened to a recording of Lauridsen's Ubi Caritas, as rendered by the Don Brinegar Singers. Transported by unexpected gifts ...
Dean M. Estabrook
Replies (5): Threaded | Chronological
Lisa Mischke on August 31, 2010 8:50am
Slowed down my day and listened.....
Thanks, Dean!
on September 1, 2010 9:26am
Oh, how easy it is for us to forget to do that. Just the other day I was thinking ahead and planning what was happening this winter and spring, and I started getting all worked up. Not enough time! We are so far behind! Must work harder, faster, longer! Then I remembered...it is only the 2nd week of school.
...and yet my top group of high school seniors (22 in the ensemble) are already reading through 8-part Swingle Singers and Whitacre charts without much difficulty. As Timothy Seelig says, it brings TLC (tears, laughter, and chills) to every rehearsal. I remember my beginning years of teaching, my ineptitude of classroom management, the classroom riots (seriously) with chairs being thrown and music being torn up. I just started my 10th year in this particular school, and I feel grateful, priviledged, and humbled to be working here. But I still need to tell myself, "Slow down. Relax. Take a breath. Have some 'me' time."
Scott Wickham
Lafayette, CO
on September 3, 2010 11:09am
Amen Scott ... I must say, if your ensemble is reading at that level, you are going to be one busy guy .... but man oh man, the rewards in store! It might do well for a group at that level to just turn off the lights one time and do exactly what I described .... they are going to need some of the same stuff ... you know, tone bath time ....
Best,
Dean
on September 3, 2010 2:11pm
Absolutely...and these kids need it more than ever. They are the over-achieving IB/AP types that don't get home from school until after 9pm every night because they are doing sports and the musicals also. For them, choir seems to wash away the grime they accumulate throughout the day.
on September 23, 2010 1:43pm
Yep, I agree .... however, I just had a visual of a pile of grime around the feet of each singer as they were thus cleansed .... lol.
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