I admire anyone who creates—musicians, artists, actors, writers, mothers, a guy who can whittle a tiny toy duck from a scrap block of pine.
But what’s bad-ass is singing. Singing a capella. Singing a capella live.
For that you’re not using any tools or utensils. You don’t have a costume, a canvas or a band to hide behind. There is no editing of the process. Sure, there are people who’ve coached you and will direct you, and those who will sing alongside you. But you’re the only one responsible for the ultimate outcome: making noise, hopefully joyous, possibly unto the Lord, if you believe in that sort of thing.
My friend/coworker Allison, she of the pitch-perfect alto (and, I’ve heard, a mean karaoke rendition of Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black”) sang in a women’s chorus in high school and a women’s a capella group in college and wanted to get back into singing, so she successfully auditioned for Amuse, a 16-voice women’s ensemble here in New York City. Tonight at the small, century-old St. Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church on the Upper West Side, the group’s guest-conductor, Penna Rose, the chapel music director at Princeton University, lead the group in a 15-song program of songs about Mary. The pieces were in English, Latin, Italian, Hungarian and Slovenian, some traditional aves and salves but all either arranged or composed by 20th century composers. (One was even in the audience and when called out by Penna, rose and delivered a thankful bow.)
Without air conditioning, the church was stifling. The propped-open front doors admitted a tiny breeze and the sound of the rain with traffic swishing by and buses braking on West 87th Street. But the audience stayed silent and rapt. Rightfully so: these voices could lift mountains. I liked that during some songs the group imitated instruments or added sound effects such as wind. Throughout the night it stormed but that only made the songs more poignant. As the choir stood sweating on the steps of the chancel, postured statue-straight with songbooks in hand, lightning flashed through the rose window behind them; loud thunder tried but failed to interrupt their beautiful harmony.