Many Voices, One Song Posted on March 27th, 2012 by

One of my absolute favorite things about my time at Gustavus has been participating in the Gustavus choir. I was reminded of that this past weekend when The Gustavus Choir, of which I am a part, the Gustavus Symphony Orchestra and the Gustavus Wind Orchestra performed a showcase at Ted Mann Recital Hall at the University of Minnesota. Any chance to share your music with the world is a precious one, and this weekend was no exception.

The classic crimson robes and the people who wore them at Christmas in Christ Chapel December 2011.

A music ensemble has all kinds of meaningful elements: creating music, sharing in a long-standing tradition at Gustavus, and engaging new challenges. Each ensemble debuted a piece written in honor of the college’s 150th anniversary. Music at Gustavus is special to me because of the bonds between musicians. We know each other by name and we tell stories about our hometowns, but the connection goes deeper than that. The relationships are meaningful because we come together to work towards a common goal: to make something beautiful. Each section in the Gustavus Choir, the tenors, altos, sopranos, basses, and our director Dr. Greg Aune all come to build towards that common goal. The process reflects an important aspect of the liberal arts.

While working on a brand new piece this semester, Alone by Eric Whitacre, the choir recommitted themselves to the effort we put in every day from 4:30-5:40 pm. We had little choice: the piece is really difficult! A few weeks ago, we split up into our sections and learned our parts, each had its own difficulties. Each singer found their own difficulties within their parts. As a tenor who struggles with a lot of high, ringing tones, there are some notes I try to sing that sound more like a car alarm than a chickadee, even after memorization and weeks of rehearsal. I’m so glad to have another nine singers in the tenor section who shine on the notes that are, for me, less than ideal.

The world beyond Gustavus is full of these relationships. Businesses function because people with diverse sets of skills can work together. A collective vision unites people in order to create success. Any ecosystem, of which I have learned a bit in my liberal arts education, is full of natural balances; plants restoring soils to fertility where other plants need the nutrients to grow and bear fruit. It’s a set of different gifts and skills complimenting each other in order to work toward the same goal—and no part of the system is in isolation.

Each day in choir, after clarifying our notes in our own sections, we always came back together again to sing with the whole choir. Quite literally, at the end of the day, we were all singing the same song. Though the basses sang different notes than the sopranos, and each individual singer produced some notes better than others, we were contributing collectively to the success of the piece. No set of notes reaches its full potential without other notes in harmony. No section is complete without the others. No voice effective without the voices of others. No music without a collective song.

 


One Comment

  1. Megan Myhre says:

    I love this. Thanks Ben!