Concert Choir Tour - The Announcement

I was in this high school choir which required auditions; an elite group. Within the high school’s arts community this was a big deal. I don’t mean for that to sound flippant because I don’t mean to diminish this in the least. I am very proud of being an early admission to the group, and even prouder of the music we produced. What I really mean to communicate is the existence of several communities within the school. There were jocks, egg-heads, hoodlums, artists, and performing artists. Bragging ever so slightly, I was a fringe member of the jocks, a fringe member of the eggheads, and a fringe member of the music community, but never felt full membership in any of the groups. Fitting in; it is the elusive goal of every high school kid. All of which has nothing to do with the story I intend to tell, but that is what happens in stream-of-consciousness blogs.

Each year the Concert Choir went on a concert tour during spring break. During my sophomore year the choir performed a series of concerts in the Denver area. The tour culminated with a concert at the Air Force Academy Chapel in Colorado Springs. The junior year tour was in the Kansas City area during the 1969 race riots; an interesting experience for a group of high school kids from Iowa.

Each year the spring break concert tour was announced sometime during the fall semester. The entire school year was spent raising funds and preparing the choral repertoire for that tour. There were rumors that my senior year’s tour was going to be something really big. I’d been washing dishes and shoveling gook at the factory for several years in an attempt to earn money for college. The rumors worried me that the trip might be expensive and encroach on my savings for college. I hoped, at the very worst, that the trip might be to Denver or Chicago, a simple bus ride and a few motel stays for a week.

The day finally came for the announcement of our spring concert trip. John Ashford, our choir director, was very cagy about the trip, and built up the announcement much like a TV game show host would do. It was hyped to the max and the entire choir was sitting on the edge of their seats as he explained the purpose of the audition recording we’d made, how it had been sent far and wide, and was well received. I knew we were good, but I wondered to what degree?

I was sinking lower and lower in my seat, seeing a price-tag rising in my head. I was thinking, “Oh crap, it is going to be Los Angeles or New York, and there goes my hard earned college fund to an extravagant high school trip.” I really was dreading the announcement. It needed to be something cheap. It also needed to be to a location that permitted me to get in a daily training run, which had been impossible during previous tours. I’d been training for the state track meet all year. I wanted to do well in the Mile at state, AND I wanted to make amazing music with the choir, AND I wanted to preserve the money I’d earned for college. It didn’t sound like all three goals were going to be mutually compatible.

It seemed to take forever for Ashford to finally get around to the announcement. The climactic announcement was this – we were invited by the Archbishop of Salzburg Austria for a command performance at the Salzburg Music Festival that coming summer.

My high school colleagues went nuts. It was pure pandemonium in the choir room. This was way beyond anyone’s expectations. The girls screamed and the boys yelled. High school couples raced across the room to hug each other. Friends hugged; buddies high-fived. Everyone was thrilled. Everyone was thrilled except for me.

I slumped in my chair with my head in my hands. My friends assumed I was overcome with shock and joy. Shock, yes; joy, no. “Tom, isn’t this great?” “Yeah . . . great”, I said without enthusiasm, hoping that my dismay would not be discovered. I’d been washing dishes and cleaning up the vomit of drunken rich people for $1.00/hour so I could go to college. I didn’t want my colleagues to know that I had no desire to go to Europe and deplete my hard-earned college savings fund. Yes, maybe Mom and Dad would help, but I didn’t want to ask, and I didn’t feel like I should be put in the position where I had to ask.