Gateways' Beauty

It’s been a week full of music in this city of music, a week dedicated to African-American musicians playing every genre, every age: pop and sacred, classical and jazz, Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, Beethoven’s Ninth, Joplin rags, St. Saens for harp, Copeland and Mozart.  Performances have filled the mornings, afternoons, and evenings from Sunday through Friday.  William Warfield has come “home” to grace us with his songs, his story.

I am part of a small, loosely gathered volunteer chorus, a patchwork quilt of cultures and singing ability.  We have rehearsed the choral section of Beethoven’s ninth symphony for two months, across the sizzling summer.  On the ninth floor of the Eastman School of Music, we have gathered at 6 p.m. every Monday, and for those coming from work, the table with pizza slices, fresh fruit, and bottles of water means sustenance.

Our choral director, Terryl Watson, vibrant and competent, has a sense of humor and is sensitive to her singers’ needs. She’s made us work hard, no breaks, for two hours once a week, revealing more to us about Beethoven’s idiosyncrasies and strengths in small asides than could ever be found in viewing Immortal Beloved several times. Her husband, William Watson, is the alert, patient, and perceptive accompanist.  We each were given a tape with our part played on the piano, so that we can study at home. Terryl Watson taught us well, and turned the 80-member group into a responsive chorus.  It felt as though our interest, our fluency, our trust in her and ourselves developed over the weeks, a crescendo.

Late in the afternoon on the last Sunday in August, women dressed in black, men wearing dark suits, the choir filed onto the stage at the Eastman Theatre.  Our numbers increased with visiting singers from across the country who have come for this week. We stepped onto the risers behind the orchestra.

Michael Morgan, the conductor for the Beethoven, whisked in, a lithe, energetic man from Oakland, California. As the symphony began, it seemed as though his hands became the instruments from which the sound came, his mouth giving us our words as we sang.  With his baton, he encouraged, expanded, hushed.  As though assisting a birth, he enabled the music to come forth, to strength, to fulfill itself.

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is music is tender, intense, martial, lilting, prayerful.  That evening, the music filled the hall, reverberated.  I’ve sung in a number of choral groups.  I’ve been in Opera Theatre choruses.  But I’ve never had the experience of singing a symphonic piece with a full orchestra.  Something magical happens.

The orchestra was made up of musicians from different parts of the country, each knowing the importance of being together.  They offered richness, diversity, dedication to music to each other and to their students.  To be a part of the gathering of dedicated musicians who have united under the name of Gateways Music Festival ’99 is an honor.  It affirms a passion for the wholeness of music, for the inclusiveness of music.