Choral Potpourri: Choral Ethics; Not Being Revengeful

“The best revenge is massive success.” Frank Sinatra

During the month of January, I’ve blogged about being Ready, being Reliable and being Respectful. Today it’s all about not being Revengeful with follow-ups from two community chorus directors featured in past Choral Ethics blogs. Both Jackie* and Josie* could have been revengeful in the situations they wrote to me about originally. It turned out well for them but not so much for those trying to undermine them. Why is that? You tell me.

I believe in karma and the whole “we reap what we sow” philosophy. There have been many times in my life, both professionally and personally, when I have had to deal with someone behaving atrociously. With seemingly NO repercussions, they appeared to get away with their rotten behavior. And then, sometimes years later, they have had to confront the fruits of their less than stellar actions. There will be benefits when you go high as they go low; you just have to be patient.

Do you remember Jackie? Two years ago, her chorus put audition posters on local grocery stores bulletin boards because they’ve always gotten a good number of singers to audition when they did. They were confused when suddenly only their posters would be taken down from those community bulletin boards. It soon became clear who was taking them.

When Jackie was at the store herself, she noticed Jerry*, one of her former singers, now a board member of another chorus, loading his car with groceries with her poster in his hand. She contacted her board president right after and decided together to keep aware of what was happening with their posters. When she contacted me, I advised to keep putting them up if they had been taken down. If she felt the poster situation was getting out of hand, she could contact the other chorus’s director and ask him to put a stop to it. Their audition numbers were about the same as in years past, so she didn’t see the point in contacting him.

Last summer, Jackie’s chorus did what they always did and put up posters. And, since they were now alert to a potential problem, made sure to monitor the community bulletin boards where they did. Everything was fine; no disappearing posters.

Last September, Jackie ran into the Tom*, director of that other chorus. He approached her, quite sheepishly, and apologized for Jerry’s behavior the year before. That summer Jerry and another singer pulled down posters from all music organizations whom they felt were in competition with their chorus. Tom realized what was happening when concert posters for a community children’s chorus he also directs were taken down. He didn’t understand how a children’s chorus, directed by their own director, would be in competition or how Jackie’s chorus, who sings a different sort of repertoire, would be. Jerry and his cohort were asked to leave Tom’s chorus after the board understood fully what had happened.

Jackie asked Tom’s chorus to collaborate on a community “Sing” to benefit a food pantry this summer. Tom said they would be delighted to. He told her he appreciates her graciousness when she could have been just as petty as Jerry had been.

Josie still directs a lovely community chorus. There is another community chorus one town over. But Alissa*, their director, wasn’t so lovely. She did whatever she could to make Josie look bad, including bad mouthing Josie every chance she got. She kept mentioning to her singers Josie’s chorus was “on its last legs” and “isn’t what it used to be” and she was willing to “step into the breach” when Josie’s chorus folds up, which should have been soon.

All the gossip and nastiness reached Josie and her chorus. They did what they could to squash the rumors, including the ones about the financial health of their organization. Hearing all the gossip about her lack in all things choral tired her out. But Josie was convinced if she did or said anything, she will be sinking to their level.

Josie contacted me last December to tell me Alissa had been fired from that other community chorus. She doesn’t know all the details but there are rumors flying about her “cooking the books” and some sort of check fraud. In fact, it looks like Alissa’s chorus has folded. Josie tells me she will welcome any singer from that group without an audition but will not go out of her way to recruit them. It smacks too much of what Alissa did to her.

There is no need for revenge. Do right and do nothing to cause trouble. The elegance of someone eventually being hoisted by their own petards is enough.

*Name withheld