ten years

Ten years ago yesterday, I performed the Verdi Requiem for the first time, as an undergraduate.¹

It was a relatively small school, so they put every singer they could find on stage and still had to keep asking the brass to play more quietly... and then we put our Dean of Music (who was a percussionist) on the bass drum, and he hit that damned thing so hard during the Dies irae that I swore he was going to break the drum head. We were delighted. It was a good concert.

Ten years ago today, we lost one of our professors, when he was shot and killed on campus. He taught organ, music history, was one of the choral conductors, and probably did a few other things that are currently slipping my mind. It was, after all, a small school.

People who knew him better might be able to do him justice, but I probably cannot, so I won't really try. Suffice to say that he was highly respected and frighteningly competent in both academics and performance. He was one of the most knowledgeable people I knew (on both musical and non-musical matters), could play anything with a keyboard, and even today it is rare for me to hear anyone match his level of musicality.²

In fact, I accidentally received my first real lesson in musicality during his class on early music performance practice. We had each been asked to bring in a piece that was Baroque or earlier to perform for the class, with him sight-reading the accompaniment parts. I brought in some Marcello sonata or other. He had some good comments to make about appropriate phrasing and meter and such, but the real lesson came from listening to the way he played the accompaniment, noticing the style and character and articulation and how they were all different than mine. I wasn't doing anything wrong, strictly speaking, but his was more clearly right, and so I started trying to imitate him in my own part. The murmur of surprise from my classmates at that moment told me everything I needed to know.

Ten years ago today, the day before the last day of classes, he left class early so that we could fill out our teacher evaluation forms. Some of us lingered for a bit afterward, talking about how much we had appreciated that class, and about the extremely positive comments that we had all left on our evaluations. I went home to run some errands, came back to campus less than an hour later, and there was an ambulance and a fire truck parked there.

We played the Lux aeterna from the Requiem at the memorial service. Chosen, I presume, because it was an appropriate movement for the situation that also utilized as much of the orchestra as possible. For which I was grateful, because I for one have a much easier time facing the darkness with trombone in hand.

There are other memories from that time as well, but we won't dwell on them here. I'm aiming for thoughtful reflection, after all, not soul-crushing despair.

So today? Today, I am working on the Verdi Requiem again. In a few days, I will be performing it for the second time. Life works in funny ways sometimes.

This is not a date that I note with any regularity. Most years I forget unless someone else says something. But putting on the Verdi recording for the first time in years brought it to mind, along with the added surprise that it had, in fact, been an entire decade. I can still hardly believe it.

A lot has happened in that decade, much of it difficult, some of it near unbearable. But regardless, it is ten years later, and I am still here.

Tomorrow, it will be business as usual. One can only wallow in the past for so long, after all, and judging by my email inbox I have much bigger fish to fry.³

But today, at least for a moment, I will remember.

I owe that much.

1. Well, technically it was the second of two concerts, because we'd performed it the night before as well. Whatever. I'm having a moment here. Shut up.[↩]


2. The only thing he wasn't the best at? Instrumental conducting. Compared to his other feats it was almost endearing, if you weren't actually trying to follow him at the time.[↩]


3. There will probably be a post about this as well. Like, soon. Holy hell.[↩]