first published December, 2017
It is concert season, and the community calendar is overflowing with a vast array of performances—symphonies professional and collegiate, chamber groups orchestral and vocal, choirs sacred and profane. I wish I could hear them all.
Still, of all the concert events out there, my favorites are at school. Nothing is more magical than a school performance. The age doesn’t matter: I feel as much pure joy watching the little kids who can barely stand still as I do the nearly-graduated who have keenly honed their skills. Scan the audience at any event and you’ll see my giant, foolish grin (and perhaps a tear or two).
I am a veteran of the school-concert audience. In elementary school all three of my kids were in choir and orchestra, and one also played guitar. That means I attended roughly 25 orchestra concerts and at least as many choir performances. Somewhere along the way I began working with the youngest choir students, each semester directing the K-2 kids in 1 or 2 songs separate from the larger choir. That continued after my kids moved on, so add about 4 more concerts to the elementary list.
Starting in middle school the kids only had class time for one music group, two choosing voice and the other, strings, so add 16 choir and 8 orchestra concerts there. Things only ramped up in high school, the choir kids in multiple groups per year, so throw in about 42 choir and 6 (and counting) orchestra performances on the big stage.
I love school concerts!
My husband likes concerts, but does not revel in them the way I do. Maybe that’s because he isn’t, himself, a veteran of school choirs–or maybe it’s because he is not a huge dork with a deep devotion to childhood performance.
I get emotional, I can’t help it. I am enchanted by the squirmy 6-year-old singing full voice, seldom right but never in doubt. I am enthralled by the virtuosic third-grader who cannot begin to perceive the depths of their gifts. I am enraptured by a group of kids who come together with one voice to create a single moment—just for now—simply because they love to play.
Beginning strings? No problem. The “screech, screech” of Suzuki’s “Allegro” could peel paint from the walls but it makes me smile. Teachers cringe at the festival of random bows, but the kids’ intense focus—or lack of it—is worth every flub. Elementary choir? Bring it on, as soon as possible. When the kids are that invested, who cares about a missed pitch or 10? The lack of polish doesn’t bother me one bit. I drink in those early mistakes and missed notes because I know where those musicians are headed, and there’s no need to get there too quickly.
My eldest child put the cello and guitar aside, but continued with choir all through school. Sitting in that high school auditorium (or countless other venues) I could recall every year—changing riser positions, evolving hair styles, expanding repertoire—and all the concerts that brought her here. Miraculous how the awkwardness of the early grades (and that mass of nested, un-brushed hair) was soon eclipsed by the radiance of her high school performances. It was a rare treat to see her college choir this fall: her school is far away, and until now I’ve only been able to see her concerts online. They students sang beautifully, but the experience was no more glorious than those tentative first-grade guitar concerts, her chair so undersized and body so small as to be hidden by the music stand.
I look at my middle child before me, now full-grown and (gasp!) a man, yet I still see the tiny dude dead-center in the first row. Like it was yesterday I see him wriggling on the riser, fussing and fiddling with his choir vest, pathologically unable to be still. Today he is assured and engaging, gliding happily between classical vocal music, a cappella, and jazz. He’s big. He’s grown up. He shaves. Yet I still see the little boy. When did he learn to stand in one place without tugging on his clothes?
And my youngest, the electrifying violist? From the filter-less 1st-grader through the apathetic 5th-grader to the gracious high school sophomore today, child and instrument have grown together, intertwined, almost as one. This, the kid who conjures musical dreams. This, the instrumentalist who dares to grabs hold of an audience. Weren’t we just practicing “Twinkle”? When, exactly, did the music take hold?
Yeah, yeah, time marches on, I hear you, but this is more than parental wistfulness. This is admitting that the kids in the converted cafeteria move me as deeply as the pros in the fancy halls; that the tuneless, the screechy, the wiggly, and the wild make music every bit as great as the savvy, confident, and poised. The music may sound different—and it does—but it feels just the same: miraculous.
So, yeah, give me a concert, the younger the better. Let me drink in that energy, that fearlessness, that heart. I’ll take the missed cut-offs and the sour notes and the courage to play. Because inside every glossy, gleaming professional is a little kid singing his guts out, daring to be wrong.
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