Concert Choir (Part One)

Back in the 1960’s in my home town the ninth grade was the last year of junior high school, and the tenth grade was the first year of high school. In the ninth grade I was taking all of the usual subjects required of young people, plus orchestra, and ninth grade chorus. I liked music, and I liked singing, and I was pretty good at it. The odd thing was that there were only 12 people in my ninth grade chorus class, and 11 of them were girls.

I did not know it until the deed was already done, but in those days an adolescent male didn’t generally choose chorus for a class. That was a sissy choice; a girls choice. Real men don’t eat quiche or choose chorus. I didn’t know that, and I frankly didn’t care. I enjoyed it, so tough beans, but I didn’t exactly announce that fact to the world.

The year of ninth grade chorus was pretty uneventful except for an in-class cello recital that was required. It was either that or sing a solo of my choosing which frightened me even more than playing a cello solo. Anyway, as the year came to a close I had to build my class schedule for the tenth grade. I had room in the schedule for all the standard subjects, but there was no room for choir.

My ninth grade chorus teacher kept pestering me about trying out for the high school concert choir. She spoke glowingly about the director and the quality of the music they produced, but when she mentioned that the choir was a select group of voices chosen through audition, I wasn’t thrilled with the prospect. I really wanted to take biology anyway, and I could not take both biology and concert choir; so I chose biology.

My after school activity during the ninth grade was wrestling, as it was the previous two years. I loved it, and was having a pretty good year. I was undefeated at the close of the dual meet season. That should have been sufficient by anyone’s standards, but my teammates incessantly razzed me about never pinning a soul. Winning on points alone wasn’t macho enough by their standards.

In my matches I’d sometimes get lucky and get a takedown for two points in the first period. In one of the next two periods I’d get two points for a reversal and in the other period I’d ride the guy in such a smothering fashion that he couldn’t move. I didn’t attempt to pin the guy, I just played it safe. I grabbed the near arm and far leg and drove him into the mat for minutes at a time. My brother Al taught me that and other methods of rendering my opponent incapable of movement. The final score was typically 2-0 or 4-0.

As the ninth grade city wrestling tournament approached my choir teacher continued to harass me about trying out for the high school concert choir. She wasn’t sure that a tenth grader had ever been accepted into the concert choir, but she thought I might be the exception. It would be a great honor to be accepted into the concert choir, she said. I kept repeating to her that I wanted to take biology, and I was relieved when the scheduled day for auditions finally passed. She would surely give the topic a rest once the deadline had passed.

Oh so wrong! My choir teacher kept after me with a spiel about how she was a good friend with the concert choir director, Mr. Quinn, and she could arrange for a special audition. She eventually wore me down and I agreed to audition just to stop the nagging. Well, bless her, she scheduled the special audition with Mr. Quinn on the same day as the ninth grade city wrestling tournament! Arggg. Mega-Arggg. Exasperation and consternation! Don’t these arts people have any sense? I didn’t want some sissy audition messing up my tournament. I also didn’t want the guys on the team to know that I was auditioning for the concert choir.

So the day of the tournament finally came around and I was the top seed in my bracket.

(To be continued)