Month: October 2010

Yeah. I am. Because I love Christmas music. And because I’m feeling a little discouraged and Christmas music cheers me up.

This was from yesterday’s baby shower for former fellow Census worker Xiomara. (Census friends, that’s Xiomara’s mother to Xiomara’s left, and her grandmother in the back holding Xandre. I think. There were a lot of babies there! I’m pretty sure that’s him though.)

As you can guess from this photograph, Xiomara was a joy to be around.

One of my heroes is gone. Esta Joy, who’s been with the Grace Church Choral Society as long as anyone, came up to me after rehearsal on Tuesday to tell me that Frank Smith had died that morning. Frank Smith was a former organist and choirmaster of Grace Church, and with his wife Dilys, the founder of the Grace Church Choral Society.

Frank was a sweet, sweet man. When he overlooked my miserable audition and allowed me to join the choir, that turned out to be one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. From music critic Henry Edward Krehbiel in 1884:

“In no other art are amateurs privileged to enjoy the spiritual beauties of a creation in the degree that music offers to choristers … Whoever belongs to a singing society … accomplishes a work and receives an artistic reward analogous to that of the painter who has copied a masterpiece.”

When Frank was brought to Grace Church in 1960, it was hoped that he would restore the musical luster that had dimmed over the years. He was an accomplished organist and had years of experience conducting men and boys choirs at churches in New York and New Jersey. (He was also a former Grace Church choirboy himself.) In four years under Smith’s guardianship, the boy’s choir went from a small group of six boys to a robust band of twenty-five. Music at Grace Church once again began to thrive.

But Frank wanted to expand the opportunities for singing to the community outside the church. In 1974, a community chorus was established. You didn’t have to be a member of Grace Church, a love of music and the ability to sing was all that was required.

When I showed up at the church almost a decade later for my audition, I was taken to the music room. The open closets at the front of the room were filled with choir robes and piles and piles of well-used scores of music. Everything on the walls was hung at kid-eye level, all the framed pictures of composers, scattered inspirational sayings, and children’s drawings and gold-starred papers. It made me feel momentarily safe. I took a deep breath, looked Frank in the eye, and babbled. I’m not a professional! I don’t do auditions. I was hoping to cover for what I knew was an average voice. Frank had such a peaceful, calm, nature though. I quickly settled down. I sang what he put in front of me as best I could (not very well) and waited for the verdict. “Welcome to the Choral Society,” he said. I wish I had hugged him or kissed him, but I was too shy. I know from his expression though, that he was aware of how happy he had made me. All these years later I can still see his face. He beamed down at me like he knew he was giving me the best gift in the world.

I have yet to find the sorrow that couldn’t be at least somewhat alleviated, nor the joy that couldn’t be made even greater, by singing. In that gentle, pianissimo way of his, every Tuesday night until his retirement in 1992, Frank Smith commanded our attention more effectively than if he had directed us in forte. What he created continues to this day to lift our voices in song.

Thank you for the music, Frank Smith. All former and future members of the Grace Church Choral Society owe you a debt of gratitude. You will be greatly missed.

Update: I just found this marvelous tribute from a former Grace Church choirboy.

I used the P setting on my camera last night at the Loser’s Lounge. None of the pictures came out. It would have helped if I had actually read how to use the P setting first. (Idiot.)

Good day ahead! Choir rehearsal, a sandwich at Cosi, People Magazine, tv catch-up (a slug day).

The New York Public Library has specialty branches and yesterday I was at the Music Division of the Performing Arts branch at Lincoln Center researching Haydn.

I was also looking into a guy named Frank Damrosch. Damrosch wanted to give working men and women opportunities to sing, and so he gave classes all over New York for 10 cents and in 1898 he started the People’s Choral Union (I have to double check that date).

I came across a 1918 letter from Richard Fletcher, the editor of a newspaper called The Chronicle. He had recently published an editorial by Mrs. William Jay, the only woman on the Board of Directors at the New York Philharmonic, and she was calling for a ban of all German Music. (This was the last year of WWI.) Fletcher was asking Frank for his support for this ban.

Sigh. I don’t know if this is going to make it into my book, but I wanted to post sections of Damrosch’s response, who I now love. (Also because of a poem his singers wrote for him. He made those hard working people’s lives better, and the poem is very touching.)

“Why deprive ourselves of the things that are good and beautiful at a time when the world cannot have too much of just such things … I refuse to believe that the American people are so unintelligent as to be unable to distinguish between the German militaristic government and Beethoven’s music, or that they would cease to hate the former because they love the latter. It is so silly a contention that one wonders that supposedly intelligent people can utter or believe it.” [I immediately thought of “freedom fries.”]

“In my opinion American patriotism should express itself by living up to American ideals of freedom … [You tell ’em Frank!] German militarism will not be defeated by the exclusion of the masterworks of German music but by the strength of our army and navy … by the righteousness of our cause. Nor will it be defeated by the persecution of harmless German artists, nor by efforts to incite a mob-spirit against works of art which have nothing to do with German autocracy or militarism [Al Qaeda vs Islamic Community Centers] … let us preserve our dignity and fairness and appreciation of what is true, beautiful and noble … ”

Yeah. Apparently we interned a bunch of members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera banned Wagner for two seasons, and I’m sure there’s a lot more like this.

Anyway … puppies!  (From my night shots experiment.)

I was taking pictures last night, and most didn’t come out well, although I don’t hate this one. Then I remembered that once I got great results when I accidentally used the “P” setting.

I’m not saying this is a great shot, but it captured more detail. It’s not sharp because it was hand-held, but still. I have to research this “P” setting.