As a child, I often fell asleep to the sound of women’s voices drifting down the hall from the living room where my mother sat listening to the recordings. My mother, a choral director, had founded a women’s concert choir outside of Boston — The A Capella Singers — in 1963, two years before I was born. Twice a year they would perform — once at the holidays and once in late spring. As each concert approached, my father would go to the rehearsals and record them on their reel-to-reel tape. Then my mother would stay up, night after night, listening.
Drifting down the hall, I would hear secular and liturgical music, contemporary and ancient songs, hymns, spirituals, lullabies; some peaceful, some jubilant, and some mournful, all arranged for women’s voices. Her favorite holiday piece was “The Ceremony of Carols,” by Benjamin Britten, which made it my favorite, too.
In the rehearsal recordings, I could hear my mother stopping the group, interrupting the music to make changes, corrections, and to ask the singers to repeat certain parts. And I heard laughter, spontaneous laughter. My mother, or maybe someone else, would say something funny, and the 50 or more women would laugh together. And then sing some more.
Night after night with those recordings, preparing for the concert, my mom listened for blending, breathing, timing, and most of all for pitch. She could hear if one voice was off. She would know which person that voice belonged to. She was exacting. She was demanding of her singers, wanting their best. “Don’t turn the pages too loudly. Watch the breath,” she would say. And the singers followed her, and loved her.
During the concerts themselves, I would sit in the front row with my father. I was mesmerized, now being able to see the women whose voices I knew from my nightly listening. I saw how some smiled as they sang; how their eyes moved from the music pages in their hands up to my mother as she stood in front of them conducting.
And then at the end, there was the applause. For my mom, for the singers. My mom would bow and then step back to gesture slowly at her group, smiling broadly. More applause. And flowers. One bouquet, two bouquets. Roses. Always dark red and intoxicating.
And then the best part, after the concert, I got to carry the flowers. I beamed and basked in her reflected glory. I was her adoring daughter.
Oh, how I loved that reflected glory. For the shy child of a performer in her moment of grandeur, reflected glory is about as great as it gets. The person I adored was being loved and glorified. If I stood close enough, I would be loved too, in her reflection.
But what I realized later was how I missed her direct love — because a reflection only carries so far. My mom didn’t do regular-mom things, like bake cupcakes for our third-grade parties. She had rehearsals to prepare for. She didn’t come to my junior high chorus concerts because, as a real musician, she couldn’t bear the sound of immature voices. As my young self, I covered my hurt as she opted out of baking and junior high events. It was the 70s. Forward-thinking moms had careers. That made me forward thinking as her daughter. Now as my grown-up self looks back, I am sad for what I missed.
As an adult, I had the true pleasure of seeing my mom come back and conduct one more concert — a sort of reunion tour. A 40thyear anniversary of the founding of the A Capella Singers. And while I watched her conduct, as a grown-up observer, I saw how completely whole she was as a musician. I saw her as her best self. She was confident and generous. She both lost herself and found herself in what she was doing as she stood before those singers. She gave and received. The music filled her heart…and then it filled mine, with feelings both sweet and piercing.
Now, many years later, I must be careful when I listen to any of the music my mom performed, especially during the holidays, especially Ceremony of Carols. I hear that first wholly recognizable note, and I crumble. Tears instantly flow from my eyes. I listen with exquisite yearning, for the love my mom gave to her music and for the love I wanted her to give to me. I love remembering her as her best self. I love the command she had over each sound, each note. How she knew each voice. I love how she let the music fill her up, and then let it drift down the hall to fill me up, as I fell asleep to the sound of these women’s voices, night after night.