Next stop, Family Weekend!
Hello everyone,
Doc and I hope that you had a marvelous summer. We'll be meeting with the returning choirfolk next Tuesday (September 20) at Doc's house - check your SU email for details and directions.
Y'all, you are in for SUCH a treat this year!
Wonderful repertoire, exciting performance opportunities, TREMENDOUS section leaders - and of course, the inestimable pleasure and benefit from shared effort to master our Art.
I always love the returning student meetings - they're so full of excitement, enthusiasm, camaraderie, and expressed concern for the new choirfolk and how we will welcome them into our group.
Some of our new people will be new to everything: Seattle, Seattle University, dorm or apartment living, Bon Appetit pizza (! - we will help them with that) - in a whirl of newness, it will be good for them to know that in at least one context, they will find a ready-made community of intelligent, talented, accepting people who value them for their multi-faceted selves and work with them to achieve their personal and collective best.
"Excellence" - that good old SU buzzword - excellence is not our goal.
Surprised?
Excellence is our STARTING POINT.
We begin there, and then we move individually and collectively from "excellent" to OUTSTANDING.
In section leader retreat yesterday, I related a conversation Doc and I had earlier this summer... something that came to me while I was watching Simone Biles change the laws of physics with her mindblowing gymnastics performances.
All of the Olympic athletes are excellent. You don't get to the Olympics unless you're excellent.
But, in the context of this event, only a few will be judged OUTSTANDING.
Choir is unique in its three-fold position - we are a class-for-credit, a performance organization, AND a socially viable entity. We are the largest and most diverse student organization on campus. Yet our diversity is united in its essence: we are devotees and passionate students of the Art. The love of music unites us.
We're also cooks: cooks who prepare a musical and spiritual feast for those who will come to eat at our table. We're cooks who eat our /own/ cooking, moreover: we give to our audiences from abundance.
No comments:
Post a Comment