"We're Still Singing....."

Thank you so much to Daniel Winik for posting the link to "Fern Hill"! (It's at http://download.yousendit.com/Q01IeEVkR0Y3bUIzZUE9PQ for those of you who might not have found it yet.) I just listened to the piece for the first time in I don't know how many years (I have a bootleg cassette tape of it somewhere -- it's from 1986, I think), and it brought back so many memories. I suddenly remembered a rehearsal we did in Woolsey Hall once -- some of you may remember this, too. Dave Blackwell began his solo, and Fenno wandered to the back of the hall, perhaps just to hear how it sounded, but certainly because Dave didn't need any conducting. Somehow, though, Fenno got distracted (did he end up talking to someone?), and suddenly the solo was ending and he was much farther from the stage than he really needed to be to conduct our entrance. Well, Fenno came galloping down the aisle, reaching the stage just in the nick of time -- but by then we had all burst out laughing (all except Dave...I remember he wasn't too pleased with the rest of us for that), and we had to rehearse the cue all over again.

Ah, those were definitely the days.

In connection with what Matt Ringel just said, and what a number of others have already said -- I was listening to this recording of "Fern Hill" on my computer, with its incredibly limited sound system (and no external speakers), and as it came to the end, I turned the volume up as high as it could go, and I could still barely hear the voices. And as the ending continued, I turned to my boyfriend and said, "We're still singing, you know." (I did say "we," even though I know that wasn't my generation singing on that particular recording!) And after another moment I said, "We're still singing." And then again a moment later. And then at long last I turned to him and said -- and he understood, because I have shared so much of this blog with him -- "How do they do it?"

-- Karen Sherman '88, Back Row Alto, who could never shut up back then and can't seem to shut up now!