Carolyn Mawby Chorale looks back on 25 years

By Scott Atkinson

 

GENESSEE COUNTY, MI — Linda Priestap spent her career teaching music but feared she wouldn’t be good enough for Carolyn Mawby’s chorale.   Eleven years later, the 66-year-old Lapeer woman likens it to a spiritual experience. 

“She takes the music off the page. It stops being notes and bar lines,” said Priestap. 

On one recent rehearsal night, Mawby stands in front of nearly 60 voices. All are trained musicians and many, like Priestap, spent much of their professional lives involved in music.  But Mawby still isn’t hearing what she wants, repeatedly stopping them just a note or two into the same musical phrase. It will continue this way until she hears what she wants – perfection.

“It’s not that she demands it. She just radiates the sense that you have to do the best you can do,” she said.