Glimmer #18: A Chorus of Glimmers

Have you ever sung in a choir? Especially a good one? The experience is astonishingly powerful. To be a small part of a big endeavor, to be one of a group of people who work together toward a common goal. It’s great.

Have you ever been lucky enough to sing in a choir that holds a concert with a live orchestra? That is a truly magical experience, as your combined voices are supported and led by horns, strings, and woodwinds. It’s as if the music is inside of you, that it resonates from within you, and that you are a part of each vibration and tone.

But have you ever been lucky enough to sing in a choir with an orchestra while performing the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah? When everyone holds a complex chord as the conductor stands with hands raised, everything stops for a second. Everything is perfect, your breath supporting your voice as you make one of the many sounds that wrap around each other to create that perfect harmony. You are a thread in that beautifully woven tapestry. You are one tiny bird in a murmuration of starlings, swirling with the wind and forming glorious patterns in the sky.

I have been that lucky, a few times over the years. The last three nights have been some of those times.

Tonight was the culmination of three months of rehearsals and practice. Tonight was the last night of…