BCS Connection & Reflections is a series of writings and musical offerings from us to you. For our 8th installment, BCS alum and tenor Tom Gregory was inspired to write this reflection. We’d love to hear from you, too!
We hope you enjoy this reflection, and we welcome your feedback. Get in touch at info@chambersingers.info.
Elijah and Me on a Balmy Key West Evening
Our performance of Mendelssohn’s Elijah on March 3, 2007 was particularly memorable for me for four reasons. First, it was a great performance. I even encouraged Gerry to submit it for airing on NPR’s Performance Today. (I don’t believe he did, however.) We had top-notch soloists, commanded by Tim Noble in the title role. And we had a solid, contracted orchestra that provided a secure foundation for both the soloists and the chorus.
Second, I think it was the last time the BCS was able to perform at the Evangelical Community Church, a wonderful venue, spacious enough to support a large array of musical forces in a friendly acoustical ambience. I miss it.
Third, I’d reached the age of 68 and my voice had begun the slippery slide into unpredictability. I could still hope to be in good voice maybe once a month. Elijah turned out to be one of those infrequent good nights. It was the last instance, for me, that aligned with a performance. Those who have sung the oratorio know what an endurance contest it is—for all voices. It probably came as no particular surprise, at least to us tenors, that we were all struggling in the finishing lap of the work with its gauntlet of fortissimo passages still ahead. I doubt that I was the only tenor harboring a desperate realization that at least a few of us needed to step forward. I was less worried about the effect of doing so on the live performance than I was about the recording. A day earlier, when we had taken our seats for the dress rehearsal, I was alarmed to find a chorus mic suspended directly above me; any over-singing now would be captured on the recording. But over-sing I did. Later, after listening to the recording, I apologized to Gerry for what struck me as a glaring imbalance. (He didn’t think an apology was in order.)
The final reason our Elijah remains memorable for me didn’t occur until a year later. Where it happened requires a little explaining: For half my life, my retirement fantasy had been to buy a big sailboat, one capable of sailing the world. Around 2003, my wife, Diane, and I bought OVERTIME! and berthed her on the Chesapeake. Heavy-duty sailing on big water never caught on with Diane and, by 2008, the 740-mile commute to the boat several times each sailing season had become onerous. Before putting the boat up for sale, I decided to take six months off from my life in Bloomington, including the BCS, to sail alone down to Key West for the winter, a last hurrah for OVERTIME! and me. (Incidentally, her name refers to the game after the game, i.e., retirement after a long career.) My plan was to spend the month of February there, sanding and varnishing the teak trim on the boat. I’d start the long journey home around March 1st, a round trip of 2,500 miles.
Now, halfway through that distance, I’d taken up residence in a quiet buoy field north of Key West and east of Fleming Key. My evening routine became making a simple dinner, maybe grilling a couple of brats or a burger, usually accompanied by a big martini. I’d eat dinner in the cockpit, listening to music. On this particular, moonless evening, the dinner music was Elijah. The cockpit was very dark, softened only by a warm glow filtering up from the cabin. The music was occasionally punctuated by air spouts around me. (I’d assume they were made by manatees, surfacing for air, if I’d ever seen any in the vicinity in daylight.) The whole experience was wonderfully moving as the music built toward its climax. Inexplicably, during the big finish, I felt the need to rise to my feet, a dubious response in a sailboat cockpit with its substantial boom and furled mainsail owning the space directly overhead. I whacked my head. Hard. Hard enough that I felt for blood but found only a sizeable bump already forming. Elijah had proven, yet again, to be a truly memorable experience.
In 2016, when a bad back made standing through concerts an impossibility, I retired from the BCS. I’d been a member of the group for almost 40 years.
Musical Offering
Tom suggested the final three movements of the Bloomington Chamber Singers' CD recording of Elijah to accompany this reflection.
