Remembrance Of Things Past

For the last 10 days I have been luxuriating on Spring Vacation—but not in the exotica of camels or pyramids or desert resorts. No, I have been luxuriating in the remembrance of things past.

The beginning of my spring break serendipitously coincided with a reunion of the Denison Singers, invited to perform as “Guest Artists” for an arts festival (“With Hearts and Hands and Voices”) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Denison University, my alma mater, is not anywhere near Winston-Salem, North Carolina, but our conductor, William Osborne, retired to that lovely town in 2003 to lead a chamber choral group. I leapt at the chance to fit all of my spring break plans around this gathering of alumni of the Denison Singers. It was not easy—I wanted to spend time with my New York friends and my Cincinnati family during the break, and making it all work inexpensively was tricky (and if you saw the Visa charges to airlines for these two weeks you would probably deem the ‘inexpensive’ hope a failure!). But I wanted to make it work. These Denison Singers reunions are too important to pass up.

William Osborne, never do we call him Professor Osborne, or invoke his real name at all—he has been forever dubbed “WO” after the way he signed his legendarily profuse memos in college. WO came to Denison in 1961 as a young, hotshot music professor, and promptly started a madrigal group. WO retired in 2003, each year of those 42 years having led a group of 16 singers (guess what they called themselves??) through rigorous, challenging, provocative music. For many of us, this tenure in the Denison Singers remains the singular experience from our Denison years.

This is not the first time WO has invited Denison Singers back together—indeed, I was just remembering that we have had reunions since the mid-1980s, I think I can get it right, that invitations came in 1984, 1986, 1991, 1995, 1998, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2006 and now 2008. I have attended some of all of them except when I was in China in 2001.

What is the appeal of these Denison Singers reunions? Reunions are tricky things—they can be dreadful or life-affirming. We have all been to reunions, I am sure, that are sparsely attended, nervous organizers wondering why no one cared to make the effort, or paunchy, balding people reliving weak memories and dazily spurting fight songs. Or the grand dinner dances where no one really talks, but you end up having a nice time in a 1959 ersatz prom kind of way. Or they might be marvelous experiences because of a charismatic, beloved figure who catalyzes a group in some kinetic way.

The Denison Singers reunions steer a different course. At the center of all of these reunions, usually about four days in length, is music. As the alumni from the classes of 1961 to 2003 gather—an astounding 42 year spread of collegians—we rehearse every day to put on a real concert at the climax of the reunion. None of us have much in common—the experience of college years in 1961 is hardly like that of the swinging years of the 1980s and bears little resemblance to the security and cell phone years of the 21st century. But we all have one thing in common—we like to make music, and we all made music under the tutelage of WO, a gifted eccentric.

But there is more than that that attracts several dozen Singers to stop life in the afternoon of our years and meet hundreds or thousands of miles away from our home bases. As WO mentioned to us, Denison Singers gathered from 17 states, and from England and Jordan for this festival not even in our college town (yes, I got the prize for having come the furthest for the reunion!! During the concert WO gave a shout-out to the two of us who came from across oceans to come and sing in Winston-Salem). The Singers of the 1980s were well-represented: each of the 3 seniors my freshman year were in attendance (they now live in Ohio, North Carolina, and Arizona, respectively) and 3 of the four of my senior class were there (Jeff—couldn’t you have torn yourself away from the academic work for a weekend??? I came from Jordan!) and I sat by Ken and Rick, my favorite tenors in the world, near younger Singers from the 1980s (Elizabeth, she of the creamy soprano whose recital program I found in my jacket a month or so ago; Scott, who met and married Marnie after their time in the Singers; and Stephanie, the Singers friend with whom I have been happily reacquainted in the last year, she drove from Atlanta to rekindle our relationship.)

As I lay in my hotel room the other night thinking about the enduring appeal of these reunions, it struck me how much like the Thornton Wilder play, Our Town, I find these gatherings to be. As my friend Peter Siviglia calls Our Town—it is a “plotless wonder,” but of course the play is really about the big issues of life—births, marriages, deaths. At these reunions there is a core group of usual suspects—there are always some from the beginning of WO’s time, and there are always some of the “babies,” i.e. the ones from the 21st century in WO’s experience—and as we meet together every few years, we observe and record the passage of time. In fact, it is almost like we have a Stage Manager in Our Town, who at the beginning of Act III announces: “This time nine years have gone by, friends, summer, 1913. Gradual changes in Grover’s Corners.” In 2004 when we first met in Winston-Salem to sing at this arts festival, and to sing for the wedding of WO’s niece, one of the members of the class of 1970 was talking with me and dear friend Elizabeth, from the class of 1987. Bob said, “You know we will keep on meeting like this forever I hope, I can’t imagine not getting together with the Singers. I imagine we will grow old together.” At these Singers reunions I always try and spend time with some of those folks about 16 years older than I, like the wacky Donna, the witty Susan, or the outrageous Mickey, and I make a beeline to see my friend Jeff, a guy 16 years younger, but one who finds these reunions as miraculous as I do. We stay up late catching up and laughing more than what ought to be allowed by hotel security.

If you have known me for very long, you know how very much I like Our Town—I have directed the play three times over the years, and I always gravitate to one of the speeches made by the Stage Manager in Act III. As he traverses over the pretend hills of the graveyard, he intones: “Now there are some things we all know, but we don’t take’m out and look at’m very often. We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars. . .everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings.”

It’s funny—as much fun as it is to reminisce about our Europe trip 25 years ago (!!) or to mock WO’s bow or his love of arcane language, these reunions are not wallowings in the past. It is remarkable, actually, how they touch on the past, the present and the future. Of course, it is fun to look at the photo albums of the 1980s and comment on the hair styles, glasses frames, or just the insistence of our youth, but we gather together also to take stock, communally, of our present. Where we are right now in the journey is always a major part of these gatherings—and these are accomplished, exciting people to be sure. And since we have a history of gathering every few years, there is a calmness and a joy that Bob-from-the-class-of-1970 and his words will come to pass, the future is certain in that we will continue to meet and refresh our memories and take hold of where we are. In these Denison Singers reunions we come as close as we are able to touch that eternal something—but not to simply touch the college you, but to help put things in marvelous perspective—where have we been, where are we now, where are we headed. This might be just as eternal as a full head of hair on a shockingly in-shape young man, or it might be the afterglow of the Stage Manager’s hope, “Aren’t they waitin’ for the eternal part in them to come out clear?” Somehow these gatherings help us, or at least certainly me, to look down that path and see “the eternal” with a little more clarity, and a little more love.

So on this epic pilgrimage of 2008 we sang a concert of German, Latin, and English pieces (the usual mix of the Teutonic, the Church formal, and the King’s English) with a glorious brass choir and a stupendous organ. I missed the Thursday night rehearsal (it does take awhile to fly from Jordan remember!), but I was there for 10 hours of rehearsal between Friday morning and Sunday afternoon prior to the concert. WO chose music as he always does—a few pieces easy to pick up and practically sightread, and then a piece or two that needed work, the real work of checking on rhythms and pitches and blend. This is another of his gifts to us—there is always a piece you think you don’t like at first, this time the “Credo for Peace” by Henry Brant. But with patience and determination you discover there are some hidden glories in it. This credo is performed with a trumpet soloist and a speaker, and is dense, and needed attention, and not just casual work in between the meals and laughter of the reunion. By Saturday I turned to Rick and said, “this is one of the WO pieces where he makes us work, where he makes us discover the beauty.” We are on to his tricks now. Not every beauty is apparent at first glance.

As per usual, I teared up during the concert. After the concerts of every reunion people scatter to the wind, returning to their usual treads and grooves. And the Denison Singers become like the classic Broadway show Brigadoon, a town that comes alive only once in awhile. But there is something so magical and joyous about that finity of experience.

I love the music. I love seeing people who knew me in my youth. And I love pondering and celebrating things that do last. These reunions are brief. Many of these friendships should not have lasted this long. But something has lasted between us…some bond which we forged long ago has lasted in some way. So while concerts do not last, school days fade away, and whatever ephemeral situation brought us together recedes in my mind, what the heart remembers, the mind can never displace.