RSCM Report: Sing ye faithful, sing with gladness

Part One: Monday

Fifteen years ago, I brought my first choristers to the St. Louis RSCM Course. One of them, Jennifer, stayed with it. A child of nine or ten years (I think), she and her father Eric and later her brother Mark became regulars at the Course.

For the first time, none of their family are here. They and others of their generation are now adults with commitments elsewhere, though Jennifer drove several hours out of her way in returning from such a commitment to drop in on the Course for a few hours one afternoon.

But there are many others here, many new people old and young. There are so many tenors and basses that I am needed more as an alto, to help secure a section consisting of as many middle-school boys as adult women. I hope to be an example that it is all right for men to sing alto, even if the adult housemaster (my friend Debbie) sometimes refers to the section as “Ladies.” For most of the week’s rehearsals I am between two of the boys: Charles, one of the choristers from my choir; and Charlie, youngest child of my friend Kristin. I well remember her wheeling him around the grounds of Todd Hall in a stroller. Now he is singing alto, and doing very well at it. He is more accurate than I, especially for the first few days (I suspect he was better prepared, which would not take much). Throughout the rehearsals, he sits and stands with good posture, keeps his pencil at the ready, and marks his scores with the efficiency of a pro. In some of the rehearsals, Kristin (herself a fine alto) has the pleasure of singing alongside her son, with her daughter two rows ahead in the trebles.

There are many fine choristers here, and the level of musicianship is high. But in the first rehearsal, the “Sound” is not there – the unique sound of strong, experienced treble boys and girls, ringing in the air. They sound young, tentative. The senior girls who anchored the trebles for years, such as Kyle and Meara, Natalie and Bryn, are gone. Of that group, only Jenna is here, but she is now an alto, seated two places to my right. She and Mike are among the senior proctors, and do excellent work in that regard all through the week.

I look around and realize that the four girls from our choir, all of them entering the seventh or eighth grade this fall – Lily, Alice, Caleigh, Lucy – will have to be among the leaders.

They will need to step it up.

Related: RSCM Report 2010:

In front of me during the full rehearsals were two little girls, Bryn [edit: this would be the same Bryn who became such a strong leader over the next few years] and Lauren. Both were irrepressible, with answers for every question, including quite a few that had not been asked. They were terrific. Across the way in Decani were Tom [ed: by 2016 a second bass, one of the tallest men in the choir, and a fine singer] and Killian, whom I had the privilege of driving around St. Louis when we went offsite to the Basilica and the Science Center. They made me feel young again with their boundless energy, jokes, and non-stop chatter. There were many others, including not only the outgoing ones I have described, but the quiet ones who said little, but saw and experienced much. In a sense, the whole Course is for these children. It is for the moment when they hear That Sound for the first time in rehearsals, the sound I vainly tried to describe a few days ago. It is for the confidence they gain when they realize that they can do the job, as overwhelming as it always seems at first; they can hold their own with the teens and adults and be part of a top-notch choir.