4/22/2024 – Fwd: Chariot Jubilee – a triumph!

And I double everything Heidi has said. Still tingling and so grateful to be creating together again.

-Marty

From: Heidi Ackerman <heidi.ackerman@frederickchorale.org>
Date: April 22, 2024 at 12:24:04 PM EDT
To: Membership Email List <members@frederickchorale.org>, Martha Banghart <artisticdirector@deercreekchorale.org>
Subject: Chariot Jubilee – a triumph!

Good afternoon!

There’s no better feeling than post-concert joy! I hope you’re all proud of the gift you gave each other and our audience yesterday. You sang so well! While we each could have taken a Benedictine knee in those first pages of the requiem, we recovered and no one was the wiser. The founder of the Frederick Chorale was in attendance yesterday – she conducted Durufle’s requiem in that very church 20+ years ago. When she congratulated me on the concert, she said your sound from the balcony was glorious and you never missed a beat! So dust off your knees and pat yourselves on the back.

I loved that our audience bathed in your sound during the first half and then experienced your power from the risers in the second. What a concert you put on! And beyond the music, I loved watching y’all connect with each other. Members from each group exchanging contact information. Friendships formed in just 2 days. When our circles widen, so does our capacity to make music.

I’m so proud of us and so glad we get to do it again! Please safeguard your health this week. Allow yourself time for rest. And perhaps once or twice before Saturday, peruse your music so we’re fresh for rehearsal.

With all my admiration,

Heidi

Here is the poem I shared yesterday –

When Death Comes

Mary Oliver

 

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world

—

Heidi Ackerman ______________________________________________________________________ The Frederick Chorale, Director heidi.ackerman@frederickchorale.org IG: @thefrederickchorale