First year choir directors

For a number of years I have provided sound and lights for the Murchison Middle School Choir concerts. Lacking a good-sized auditorium, they perform at Westover, and do three programs a year - Fall, Christmas and Spring. The director is Mr. B - a no-nonsense, very intense and very strict young man. The choirs (there are usually more than 200 kids participating, divided into 3 or 4 choirs of varying ability) are quite good. They bring their hardware to display after the Spring contests, and they always have multiple tables full of trophy's and plaques. I enjoy doing these programs because the choirs are quite good.

The other night I walked in to get ready for a program and no Mr. B. I finally figured out that the very young woman bouncing around down front was not a student, but the new director, Miss L. Mr. B has moved on to take the position of Choir Director at Anderson High. I suspect the kids at Murchison who thought "Finally, he's gone!" are chagrined to learn he's just waiting for them at Anderson.

Miss L introduced me to Miss F, the assistant director, who if anything looked younger than the students. And yes, this was the very first year for both of them. No one had to tell me that - I could tell from the noise level in the room. Mr. B would have had everyone in their seats, by now, absolutely silent, eyes straight forward. Misses L and F were yelling at each other and joking with various students from across the room and the ambient noise level was approaching the pain threshold.

Mr. B warmed up each choir, one at a time with traditional scales. Miss L had all the choirs doing musical jumping jacks. At one point, she called for a continuous 'oooooo' from everyone. It was a rather unusual, disquieting sound, and as it stretched out, the room gradually got very quiet until you could only hear the 'oooooo'. When she cut it off, she said, "I've never heard that in an auditorium this size. That was kind of scary, wasn't it?" And it was.

I doubt that Misses L and F will be able to show the volume of hardware in the Spring that they have lugged in in the past, but I'm pretty certain the kids will have more fun in choir than they did with Mr. B. It was a fun program and the kids obviously had a good time.

I saw Mr B after it was over. He had been sitting way up on a back row in Tinsel Town, and he had a big frown on his face. Too bad. I think I will continue to enjoy doing these programs because they will be a lot of fun.