curtain

I've reached that stage in pre-adulthood where I can look at my juniors and immediately flat-out die of pride. Yesterday night, I suddenly felt this incredible anger while watching them sing, because it was beautiful and magical and lovely and, reminded of SYF, I realized there and then that I hated the idea of judging beauty, hated the notion that it could be cheapened by medals, hated the enterprise of competing because you have to and it's a key performance indicator that's wrongly made out to be tangible and objective. And worse: the popular opinion that the choir is defined by what is handed out — that it is constrained, forced to treat the stigma as a hurdle, given deadlines and ultimatums.

Yesterday I was reminded that TJChoir is one of the few special choirs here that refuse to be tied down to parochial standards that are universalized, misapplied and abused. We (and I use "We" because once you're a part of this, you never leave. But not in a creepy way of course.) are devoted first and foremost to our music, not our reputation. We are selflessly involved in creating beauty, hopelessly devoted to pursuing that moment when the wrinkles in the air cause prickles in your skin and send goosepimples licking up your back. We are constantly humbled before our music, because what we create is always, always larger than then mere sum of our parts. We give away ourselves to the making of each performance. And it is a wonderful thing to be in this choir, to expand your worldview so profoundly that, looking through the sepia-tinted lenses of experience, you are shamed by your seeming naivete in the past but also willing to forgive the self and accept that growing up requires that upward progression from inexperience to maturity (duh). So, we don't just sing; we express our humanity — all the sorrow and the joy, pain and pleasure, fragility and undying fortitude. And this is just me and my little manifesto that took a year to hatch.