I learned recently about the death of one of my classmates from college. Chris’ was a combination of talents like I’d never seen, which I may never see again. I imagine there are dozens of blog posts and Facebook statuses being written this month that will try to make heads or tails of this strange occurrence (someone dying naturally before his fortieth birthday), and which will regret the musical world’s loss. I hope these writings will help their authors to grieve and come to terms with the situation.

Chris was music and that’s what music is all about

I, too, could write a thousand words on each, without question. In fact, the draft of this message began “I learned today about…” and the first few sentences trailed off until I myself would find a time in which I could make a permanent mark on the situation, in my own words. And, as in so many of the posts on this site (most notably, my debut post), my thoughts have centered on a community of kindness because, after all, Chris was music and that’s what music is all about.

I will collect my thoughts by way of some history about the brief time I shared with Chris. There aren’t many people who leave an impression so striking that you remember with clarity the moment you met them. Back in the fall of 1995, I was starting my freshman year of college. In the first few days of school I performed my choral placement audition, and must have done something right, because I was placed in the select Chamber Singers group. I didn’t yet understand the politics of placement in the various choirs, and thought nothing of it. To me, I was starting my choral career and knew my first assignment. Somehow I was made aware that it was the practice for available Chamber Singers to meet for an hour before the director arrived to review and prepare. So, I made my way to the auditorium stage and found the pick-up rehearsal already in progress. We would not find out that semester’s repertoire until that afternoon, so the group who’d assembled were warming up with material they already knew. The song being sung as I approached was Maurice Durufle’s setting of the “Ubi caritas” plainchant which I had performed, coincidentally, with my high school choir the previous spring.

Something encouraged me to enter the circle and join in

I was new, I was young, and I should have been shy. But something about that small ensemble encouraged me to enter the circle and join in. This was the first I was aware of Chris. As accompanist of the Chamber Singers, he was the de facto warm-up rehearsal facilitator, and for this particular a cappella piece, he was pacing the circle, conducting the group. The previous year’s group were remembering how to work together, the new members were figuring out how to make an impression without appearing too overzealous or cocky, and Chris, as momentary leader, was taking it all in. As I began to sing the first notes on a four-year journey with this new family, my singing managed to attract him. I remember a look he gave our Teaching Assistant as his eyes pushed her ears in my direction. This all happened in real-time, and I remember it so vividly, because it is one of the most beautiful examples I can imagine of the community of singing.

Later that first semester, as we began to work on a new setting of the Congaudeat hymn, I was asked on the spot to sing in a trio, unison at three octaves with tenor and alto above me. The part extended to a low D, a note which has always been in my richest register, capable of an unusual amount of volume. As we sang the line, reaching downward to the D, I turned up the volume a bit, in response to my partners, and caught that same movement and ever so slight eye swell from Chris, this time toward our bass section leader.

Two glances from an amazing performer was all I needed that semester to give me the confidence that I would be okay, that I could make it as far as I wanted to at my new school.

In music, you must be a part of the group.

I’ve thought back many times on those two moments in the last few weeks, as equal testaments to the power of the individual and the music to include someone on the fringe. In music, you must be a part of the group. There is much documented evidence signaling that we excel together as one when we perform in a group, and while I personally do not understand how one can be active in the choral community and not believe in a higher power, I know of atheist colleagues who would attest to the truth of these statements, and who would uphold at least the music, in lieu of a God, as a transformative tool in those moments when the final strains of the St. John Passion or Randall Thompson’s “Alleluia” are heard.

We opened our mouths to the same goal.

Chris was either one or two years older than me in school, which means I worked actively with him in the rehearsal room but ten hours a week for a few falls and springs. It’s been mentioned elsewhere that I was particularly quiet in my college years, and was so focused on task that I did not make time to get to know people or form steady friendships, which points to another amazing feature of a music ensemble. I never shared a coffee or went to a movie with anyone in that group, but to this day I feel as though I formed something special with each and every one of them, simply because we were forced to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in mixed formation, and open our mouths to the same goal: beautiful sound.

Chris was a music education major, and I’d heard that he had in fact become a music teacher, at a pretty nice looking private school. I have thought from time to time in the last fifteen years about what a magnificent teacher he had probably become. Chris could have had any gig in the world, and he chose to pay it forward to youngsters that they might one day inspire and do the same. I am sure of the impact he had on his students, given that he was able to warm a younger colleague through the power of a few inviting glances.