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Chasing Your Tail

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This semester I have spent an inordinate amount of time “chasing my tail,” as a fellow director put it. With my community group, we found out that our venue for our concert next week is having a dance next door to the sanctuary we’d be performing in (it’s a church with a private school attached). We forgot to ask about it, and they didn’t think to mention it. So I spent most of my Friday driving around town and on the phone with my Executive Director trying to find a new venue that worked for the repertoire in this concert (all unaccompanied, “cathedral” type music that needs a hall with lots of ring). It turned out that the dance will actually be on the other side of the building, not right next to us, and would basically be over by the time we started. So…lots of panic, and in the end we are back where we started.
 
I’ve found myself doing a lot of this sort of thing this year. I’m not sure why. Schedule problems, billing problems, logistics problems, and a whole host of things that were never a problem in the past, but for some reason this year they are.
 
I’m not the type that thinks this type of work is “beneath” me because I am a “conductor,” (I actually don’t know too many people in our profession who really think like that…it seems to be a bit of a stereotype). Like many of us I got my start as a public school music teacher, and if you aren’t OK with grunt work, well…you’re in the wrong profession. But with all these essentially non-musical problems out there that I have to spend so much of time and energy on, I wind up short changing the musical and creative parts of my job. And that’s not fair to my singers.
 
I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m whining (I am whining a teeny bit)…my jobs are wonderful, and I wouldn’t change them for anything. And I also know that life is like that…there is always something to fix. It’s the nature of things. So, I try to laugh at the silly things, handle the big things, close the door and unplug the phone and do some score study or open-ended “creative” time, and then make sure to play with my kids when I get home. That always helps. Then, I charge into the next rehearsal as fresh as I can, and I watch those wonderful singers who are devoted to this art form, and that lifts me up. It always does.
 

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  1. As I read the title of this ChoralBlog piece, I thought, “Oh great, Joshua is………..” then I began to actually read it and am convinced you have spying on me! I conduct a semi-professional chamber choir which I founded, after resigning from my more *traditional* positions because I was burned out.  So much of my time, right now, is taken up with the running of the organization……the music is the easy part that keeps me going, but this stuff is very important because it’s what our audience actually sees.
     
    We are doing a concert of music from the Galant the beginning of November and our venue is a wonderful church with a lovely organ but we were trying to borrow a “parlor” organ to keep it more authentic.  Plus, the church’s organ is in the choir loft and there will be a sound lag and the organ console will have to be turned to the side, so my continuo players will actually be able to see me! The college we were borrowing the organ from—and our venue’s music director has connections which is why we are having the concert at his church–took the organ out of storage a week or so ago and…..it needs work, the leather bellows are cracked, etc. etc. etc. etc. So, now I am looking around for another one……..and just may say to heck with it because this is just another stress and I don’t need distraction from the actual MUSIC.
     
    And, the music is what is driving me and refreshing me.  One of the works will be a modern premiere and the other two works were edited by my first conducting teacher, the late David Larson.  I sang in the North American premiere of one of the works as a 19 year old, and as  we are rehearsing, am having *flashbacks* from that time—the weirdest thing.
     
    I, like you, don’t know how to do anything BUT get my hands dirty and it isn’t above me.  Some around here thinks it makes me “less than” because I’m willing to do what I have to get the concert up and running and in the venue.  Every once in a while (like now, when I am trying to get to my *Zen Place* and am pulling myself up  the side of that darn mountain to get there!), I wonder what it would like to have someone take care of these things for me.  I don’t think I would like it because no detail is too small for a conductor to think about.
     
    Thank you for letting me know I’m not the only one who sometimes sweats the small stuff.  My adviceto you  is to cut down on caffeine and go with it!
     
    Marie

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