ONE

Tonight, I’m singing Beethoven’s Ninth with the New World Chorale and the Carlisle Chamber Orchestra. (Boston locals, come! It’s free!) Even though I’ve sung it countless times as both a soprano and alto with different choruses, it still thrills, still moves, still satisfies. And it still boggles the mind that Beethoven was completely deaf when he set Friedrich Schiller’s poem “An die Freude” (“To Joy”) to music over 200 years ago (read the German/English here). The best part of singing with New Worlders is that most of us know it cold; many sing from memory as former (or current) members of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. With a lesser chorus, I might worry about inadvertent solos (oops) or screechy sopranos (eeks) or sloppy diction (ach du Lieber!), but with this gang, we’ve internalized the nuances so well that I can relax and hop onto the familiar 25-minute roller-coaster ride with confidence and Freude!

TWO

Fun choral-centric fact: The “Ode to Joy” follows three instrumental movements that can last up to 50 minutes, depending on the conductor’s interpretation. That’s a lot of sitting. (Sometimes the chorus files on just before the third movement and stands for the duration, but that’s rare.) What do I think about during that long wait? I’m shrimpy, just five feet tall, so I’m almost always in the front row, right behind the brass. I love following their scores and noticing the choreography of their bodies, their intimate relationship with spit valves. My eyes wander, picking out individuals—a cello here, a flute there, and the ever-interesting percussion section. I watch the conductor and wonder if their feet or arms are tired. And I muse on the sheer miracle of dozens of people following those arms, attending to their unique set of black dots on their page (or iPad) that somehow combine to make a cohesive sound. And soon, the familiar crash-chord that opens the fourth movement. My breath quickens. I scoot forward on my chair, ready to stand on cue at measure 208. We settle in for the bass solo: “Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium.” It’s showtime. Wunderbar!

THREE

I sang my first B9 on March 26, 1976, with the University Choral Union at Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Aldo Ceccato conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Simon Estes (!) was bass soloist. How did I remember that? I didn’t. But, Google. I found my name in the program among the UofM archives. I also noticed they listed the annual May Festival programs featuring the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy—including from 1939 to 1943, when my mother was a student there. I couldn’t find her name in the programs, although she was a choral singer, but there turned out to be a surprising connection nevertheless, as you’ll see. Synchronizität!

FOUR

In August 1977, at age 23, I spent three weeks at the Saratoga-Potsdam Choral Institute performing with none other than the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in upstate New York. Over 300 singers from all over the country rehearsed daily, preparing for the B9 led by an aging-but-robust Ormandy decades after his Ann Arbor gigs.

The Institute also included Beethoven’s Mass in C with Robert Shaw (unbelievable), Prokofiev’s War and Peace with Sarah Caldwell (powerful), and Old American Songs with Aaron Copland himself conducting (which, let’s just say politely, was not his strength). In my diary, I wrote: “Brock [McElheran, the SPCI conductor] is an amazing person and extraordinary conductor. He blends a demand for perfection, precision, and total concentration with a relaxed, warm, and humorous attitude. We can spend 15 minutes on one small passage or even a measure, or a note, or a consonant, and it isn’t boring. I’m so happy here! Nothing exists right now other than making music together!” Harmonie!

FIVE

Ann Arbor and Saratoga weren’t even my peak B9 experiences. What could be peakier than singing for the Opening Ceremonies of the 1998 Nagano Olympics with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus?! On February 7, the groundbreaking event featured choruses from around the world performing live, simultaneously, as tech wizards synched us up via satellite—all while Seiji Ozawa conducted from the Nagano Culture Hall in Japan. Our group packed the stage at the UN General Assembly Hall in NYC, watching Seiji on the monitor (with Maestro John Oliver shadowing, just in case). It wasn’t until we watched the recording back (see NOTE below!) that we saw dancers, acrobats, and our fellow singers (sporting colorful outfits), each in their respective time zones. In the video here, starting at approximately 1:45:00, you’ll see choruses singing (and some dancing) at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, the Sydney Opera House, Beijing’s Forbidden City, and at the tip of Cape Point in South Africa, where you can see Seiji on the monitor. At the Olympic stadium, 2,000+ Japanese singers followed Seiji’s baton on the Jumbotron as tens of thousands in the seats took in the spectacle.

If you want to catch a glimpse of 1998 soprano me, at around 1:48:00, the camera turns on TFC right at the climactic moment of “Steht vor Gott,” shown in my score here. Keep going a few more seconds, to the end of that phrase. The musical direction is molto tenuto, meaning, basically, hold that note for however the hell long the conductor feels like holding it. Oh Seiji, you held, and held, and the sound echoed around the world. Gooooottttt!

We were young then, more naive. Did we still believe peace and cooperation were possible? Do we now? All I know is for that moment, thousands and thousands of musicians united. No borders. Just hope. And molto Freude.

Here’s that whole page (featuring one of the best alto entrances ever):

NOTE

Steven Ledbetter, a former TFC singer, musicologist, and former program annotator for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, reflects on TFC’s UN experience and notes the infamous-among-TFCers moment when we returned to the hotel to watch back the recording only to discover that CBS had interrupted our historic broadcast for FIFTEEN MINUTES, instead airing an interview with skater Michelle Kwan for the US audience. Thankfully, the full video aired everywhere else and is preserved for posterity. Enjoy! Bonus: Here’s Stephanie Strom’s NYT article about the event.

Dear Readers: Hope you’re enjoying my Substack, where I post five micro-memoirs every Friday. I’m keeping it free for the foreseeable future, but I’d be grateful if you’d lend your support by subscribing and sharing. And stay tuned for updates on my search for a publisher for This Is 70: A Life in Micro-Memoirs, a linked set of 70 micro-memoirs of exactly 70 words each, written to mark my 70th birthday last year. Thanks for visiting!