What If Dad Sang For The Last Time?

We didn't know that Dad would be singing, we were just going for the concert ( er uh service ). Instead of the usual soloist emerging from Dad's choir, this time he just turned around and sang the two solos himself.

It was Faure's Requiem, Dad is in his fourth or fifth retirement as a choral director, so I always try to get in as many performances as I can, knowing that some day it will all be over.  This isn't just Dad though, when "it's all over," it's a long line of choral and music directors. Dad is just the last one.

You might conclude that we've been going downhill since the 1800s when my great great great grandfather was a High Priest of some sort, in what is now Iran.  The Armenians were marched from Julfa in Armenia some 500 years previous, so the story goes, to help the then King of Persia civilize his wild country, engineer the new buildings and bridges in the capital Yerevan, and work as educators.

My great great grandfather was an english professor and a band director, apparently. Four of his children entered the field of music, my grandfather becoming one of the most brilliant choral directors in his time. It seemed odd for Dad to follow in his footsteps considering how well they got along in the formative years, but that is what Dad did.

Dad, with his brother is one of the last of several great directors, following his father, his grandfather and I believe also his great uncle, perhaps even more. So it's always a poignant moment, this whole thing about the end of a line.

The Director Doesn't Sing

Usually anyway, the director of a choir doesn't sing unless there are budget or resource concerns. If it's a really small church or a really unpopular choir, the director will often act as organist, director, soloist etc. But Dad has always been a dude, so he gets the big choirs with the big budgets, even now in one of his retirements. Soloists are hired, we never get to hear Dad sing.

So imagine our surprise when he just turned around and sang. Gulp. Pretty cool. Oddly enough, of my four siblings, all but one of us was there. We turned toward each other and shrugged. Gee. We could count the number of times we had seen this on one hand.

None of this is surprising, his own father was arguably one of the best voice teachers in his time, and the two of them spent a lot of time together before he passed, so some of that had to rub off :) Then too, Dad loves his work, and he loves this particular requiem. So it's only logical he would do it brilliantly.

We were heading back from the grocery store this morning listening to one of Carlos Santana's recent cuts from The Healer, and my brother David commented on nice it was to listen to Carlos Santana's "old hands" playing the accompanying guitar. It's a great cut, if you haven't already heard it.  The ecomomy and timing of an older musician can be refreshing in a way that  even a more accomplished, younger virtuoso might not be able to equal. This could easily be said of Dad's singing, it was fun to compare the two as we're driving down the freeway a day after the fact.

So how was it, Dad ?

We all took turns grilling him afterwards, of course. He explained that this was his swan song, he wanted to do it one last time. "But Dad, it was so beautiful, and it looked so effortless...".

It wasn't nearly as effortless as it looked, he explained. That was the art, to make it sound easy and flowing but he really had to struggle to get it all in. That was why he picked these pieces in the first place, they are well within his range and easier to sing. But still it was a lot of work. He wasn't thinking he was going to pull that one off again, not because he couldn't, more that he wouldn't.

His father, 22 years ago, did the same thing

Family pride is a funny thing, but all pride is a funny thing, no ?

There was already much bittersweet in the air in 1986, I had finished my first serious piece of work as a building contractor, a home that was later published worldwide for it's high design. This was not my grandfather's chosen route for me, but he was being graceful about it, and the project was pretty stunning.

The owner was a professional harpist, so my sister came to play her viola, and my grandfather sang a solo, and we blessed the house with this concert in the living room that hung out over the water. The room had been designed specifically for such concerts, so it was a nice way to give the house it's start in life.

My reaction to Grandfather's singing was similar to the reaction to Dad's. Here was this 80 something year old voice teacher and choral director singing a very rare concert solo, and that "sweet" word kept coming up. I'm not sure which I remember more, the sound of his voice or the deep smile that seemed to go all the way to my gut. Guess you'd have to be there. Grandpa passed away a couple of years later, so it was his last concert. We had received the highest honor.

No big deal

Ah heck, it was just another day. Dad sings a song, choir does an excellent performance, the world keeps turning.

We're going to have a big brunch today, 12 of us. It will be fun to just do the family deal, pretend like nothing really happened.

Wish you could be there.