Last week, I finally attended a cathedral evensong service. It seems crazy that it would take so long but there are distance issues for this suddenly hesitant traveller. The twenty minutes of listening to the choir rehearse and the subsequent service were glorious. The men and boys' choir has one woman in it, a countertenor/alto of course, and I caught her eye as the choir processed out.
If anyone ever writes the proverbial book about the entry of girls and women into this field, I wonder if I will be included. That there was a little girl from Schenectady, New York, USA, who was an early pioneer will seem improbable, but I do believe my role was significant. As some of you know, by 1960, I had fallen in love with the music (based on what I heard the men and boys sing at our Episcopal church.) I was heartbroken being consigned to the "girls' choir." By the time I was ten, I told people I would be the first woman conductor of King's College Cambridge, and I started listening and singing to recordings to teach myself Anglican chant and the canticle repertoire. I took up the organ, and majored in music at college. I am quite sure (based on the looks on the men's faces) that I was the first woman to attend St. Thomas Fifth Avenue's choirmaster's conference, in 1980. I sang with Royal Holloway's choir during my MMus year at the University of London, and only gave up on my dream in the early 80's when it seemed girls and women would never have a significant role. Ten years ago, I allowed the fire of my passion some oxygen again, and in that time, auditioned (unsuccessfully) for two British cathedral choirs, sang for nine months in the choir of St. John the Divine in New York, and wrote and published two articles on composer Herbert Howells. I have sung one service at King's, and a week of services at Canterbury, as well as gotten to know a number of my heroes and heroines.
These are all blessings way beyond what the tradition would have offered in the 1960's, yet I suspect if you add up all the choral evensong services I have actually sung, they would amount to about two months in the lives of the women currently singing as countertenors. Perhaps this might be easy to dismiss, but I cannot. I have said in the past that I had no career, but having reached 63, I realize, these efforts were my career. No, I never received a salary or benefits. I paid my own way (with occasional much-appreciated help from friends!) I've lived with almost unbearable unsettledness the last few years in order to take advantage of singing or research opportunities. And a case could be made (given that I was en route to cathedral midnight mass when I fell) that I've given my right arm to experience the music I love!
But on my birthday, when I caught the eye of the woman in the choir, I think I passed the baton. I feel at peace. I played the role I was meant to play, and did it as well as I could given that there was absolutely no "how-to" book. I did it with as much integrity as I knew how. I did it with all the love and passion that I have. Will I ever sing another service? I don't know. I'm not sure I have the energy, frankly. That's OK. As is the case with other people retiring from their careers, it is time for younger women and new situations. I believe I have been of service in a small but unique way. This recent injury has propelled me through a series of "gates," and looking ahead, the light is bright with no distinct landmarks. I do know that any future path will have to feature the level of beauty and spiritual resonance as church music, but I'm also hoping for a slightly higher level of acceptance, comfort, and ease. I want to walk through gates now, not break them down.
