Warning: This will be a boastful blog entry, if you will. As I read 'Seriously So Blessed' and the comments it generates, I've come to understand that it is bad form to ever express something that happens that you are proud of... so good form aside, I shall proceed. Be sure to call me TAMN in any comment you may wish to leave.
On Sunday night, our stake held it's annual "Christmas Choirside." This is a musical fireside that every ward in the stake contributes to. Each ward chooses a hymn in which the entire congregation sings together, and then they proceed to sing a Christmas song they have prepared for their Christmas sacrament meeting program. The first couple years I participated with our ward in this event, I was annoyed by it and always wanted to leave as soon as our ward was done. But now that I am the choir director of our ward, I actually find it fun. You wanna know the reason? It's because, hands down, I have the best choir in the stake!
See... I told you this post would be dripping with pride. I can't hide from it!
Now, I don't mean to say that the other wards have bad choirs (okay, truth be told, some of them do... sorry). Several of them were quite talented with some excellent singers. Some wards had pretty small choirs, but could put out a good sound. Some had medium sized choirs with a decent sound. They all chose lovely Christmas songs, and it's hard to go wrong when singing beautiful music celebrating a miraculous event. I can honestly say, there was something good about each number performed.
My choir was 7th on the program. We were all sitting together, squished like sardines on 2 of the longer center pews in the chapel, and when we went up on the stand, it made the chapel look pretty bare. Not all my choir members were there last night and we still had about 25 singers. I'm so blessed (yep... sounding like TAMN!) to have so many talented singers willing to support our choir. We have some seriously beautiful voices and all of them are able and willing to blend their voices together so that we sound unified. I'm also blessed that they learn music quickly and actually follow me and humor me with some of the wacky techniques I picked up from my voice teachers and choir directors of my youth. I'm ALSO very lucky to have a gifted accompanist who has been able to handle EVERYTHING I've thrown at him with zero warning.
Our song was beautiful and I got the biggest buzz out of being in front of them and being able to call them "my" choir. I will attempt some humility here, though, and call it "our" choir. The hardest thing about being the director of a ward choir is that it is a job that is IMPOSSIBLE to do by yourself. A person could be the most gifted performer or director (which I'm not) and still be a complete failure without the support of the ward members. I am very, very thankful to ALL the ward members willing to come and make our choir the success that it is. I have so much fun with all of them!
So, last night was a payday for me. Being the choir director, like any calling in the church, does have it's element of work. Thankfully, this is a calling with frequent rewards, and last night was one of them! I left there feeling like a million bucks! Thanks everyone!
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6 comments:
Dear TAMN -
I wish that I had been there to hear how beautiful it was. I love being a part of the choir...it helps that you are my bestie and I just love being around you too.
THanks for doing a great job and helping us all to have a great experience in choir and seriously kicking some rear...religiously humble of course.
Way to go! I have no doubts in my mind that you made your choir excellent in every way! It would have been nice to have heard them sing.
It's not Greta, I just failed to log her out.
My sister was there she told me that our ward had the best choir there! Way to go girl :)
Go ahead and toot your own horn on occasion. Some wise sister of yours told me that you can be spoiled without being insufferable, by acknowledging you're spoiled and by being decent about it and sharing a bit.
Same goes for tooting your horn. Don't do it every day, acknowledge others, and acknowledge that you are bragging.
Some days you just gotta brag, and hey, sounds justified to me.
You so TOTALLY rock, TAMN.
That is Awesome! Toot away, my friend. I really wish our ward had a choir. We are the only ward in the stake without one and i don't know why. Of course, I don't want or have the skill to be the one to put one together, so I'm out of luck. I am involved in the Stake choir, which is a ton of work and time Sept-Dec, but our performance was last weekend, so we are done for a while.
Your ward is lucky to have you!
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