In ways, this is just your average clear, crisp autumn morning in the upper Midwest. I am close enough to Lake Superior to be able to see the early morning sparkles of sunlight on the water through the trees. It reminds me of how, fifty summers ago, I loved the same morning sparkles on Lake Champlain, barely visible from our family's "camp"/cabin. We would sit along the porch railing, eating breakfast before heading to the tennis court or beach. I am thankful for this early imprint of beauty and magic. (And, ahem, privilege.)
There's some extra sparkle to this day, having learned the stunning news from England that St. John's College, Cambridge's Choir program is poised to start including girls and women. Even as other cathedrals and choral foundations had begun to be more inclusive, it had seemed like the three or four most prominent men and boys' choirs were likely to stay that way. So it is thrilling to live to witness this change, and to understand that I had a role, however small, in the early shaking of the foundations of a longstanding tradition.
I used to listen to records of St. John's College back in the mid-sixties, when its choir was under the direction of George Guest. These recordings, along with those of King's College, Cambridge, Westminster Abbey, and Christ Church, Oxford, were my own personal choir school. I literally learned how to sing as much from singing along to recordings of these choirs as I did singing in church or school choirs. There were summer mornings at Midwood when the rest of my family had all scattered to play tennis, hike or sail, and I would put a record on the record player and sing -- at the top of my lungs -- along with the Howells "Collegium Regale". "At the top of one's lungs" in the middle of the trees in Adirondacks is decidedly not the way this music was intended to be sung, but perhaps in breaking that sound barrier, I helped to start breaking down other sound barriers too. Perhaps my passion registered somehow in universal consciousness.
So, thank you, St. John's College, and all the institutions that have embraced female voices. We were never less passionate or less competent. All we ever wanted to do was sing the music we love.
