“There are songs to be sung, stories to be told…” I’ve sung the songs, so now and here, I get to tell the stories.
“There are stories from the past, stories from the heart. It’s the stories we tell that tell us apart.”
I started out singing.
My elementary and middle school years were spent at St. Michael’s, a small Catholic school in Exeter, N.H. I was in a choir that sang every now and then during a mass at St. Michael’s Church. But we also sang in school and my earliest memory of getting any kind of “applause” for my “musical talent” was from then. I remember sitting at my desk, singing something (sorry – I’ve got no idea as to what) and my teacher, a nun (from the order of the Sister’s of Notre Dame) was walking up and down the aisles putting a plastic-wrapped lollipop into the mouth of the singers who opened their mouths nice and wide as they sang.
I got a lollipop.
The “song” that changed my life was Bach’s “Passion according to St. John” My high school choir in Williamstown MA was invited to sing the Chorales in a performance presented at and by Williams College. I was so overwhelmed by the experience I began to explore classical choral repertoire and began listening to the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts Saturday afternoons on the radio.