A Voice in the Crowd

Last Tuesday, March 16th, was the Town-wide Choral Festival and we were in attendance because Sarah was singing with the middle school group. They do these choral festivals every three years and we’d been to two before when Emma had sung with the middle school and then high school groups.

The concert was held in the gym of Emma’s high school. We had not been back there since she died. It was the day before the 9-month anniversary of her death. We knew this would be a tough concert for us to get through.

The middle school choir sang Danny Boy (again!) and the high school group performed two movements of Mozart’s Requiem. Whoever put together the evening’s repertoire clearly does not read my blog. They clearly weren’t thinking about the two grieving parents in the audience or the grieving sister who needed to perform. But I guess it would be unreasonable to expect that of them. So there we were sitting in a gym, surrounded by 1,500 people, with the gym lights blaring, and the tears streaming down my face. How Sarah found the strength and composure to sing, I’ll never know. She’s amazing.

The concert did bring back some fond memories of Emma singing in her school concerts. Even in elementary school, Emma had a big booming voice and sang with gusto. When she sang with her grade in elementary school, we could always pick out her voice, even though she was singing in a group of 60 or more students. We thought it was just because we had a parent’s ear for her voice, but one time after a concert another parent walked up to me and said, “Emma sounded great!” Apparently everyone was able to pick out that strong voice in the crowd.

The choral festival reminded me of that. Despite the fact that they were more than 100 strong, the middle school chorus sang softly, wearing their adolescent inhibition on their sleeves. It’s kind of a funny phenomenon, actually. A couple of middle school choristers sing softly because they are intimidated by the audience, and the rest of the group follows suit. Each one wants to be sure that his or her voice can’t be heard above the others.

Emma never got that memo. When she sang with her middle school group 6 years ago, we could hear her loud and clear. And we could easily pick her out amongst the rows and rows of singers. She was the one who was moving to the music, clearly in a zone. Audiences, even audiences of 1,500 or more, didn’t intimidate Emma. I think that’s because Emma sang for herself. Singing brought her joy and she wanted everyone to know it.