70 people, random acquaintances bringing fantastic recording equipment, 20% over our fundraising goal, and the ability to show our singers that we can put on a kick-ass event (...and let's make no mistake, it was KICK-ASS!) It was a wonderful night that just about makes all the ugliness it took to get there worth it.
But there's no getting around the fact that getting there was a big bowl of ugly. We arrived at the dress rehearsal with only nine singers able to commit to coming to the launch party. With one exception, every other singer either temporarily or permanently withdrew. No matter how often singer withdrawal happens, those emails/conversations never feel any less awful. Maybe they will when we're on solid footing, but that won't be for another while.
Less than a month ago our wonderful director of singer recruitment, Michelle Scanlon, held a meeting with the singers to ask why they rarely show up. Emily and I absented ourselves from that conversation so people wouldn't feel as though they had to spare us their bluntest feelings. But we got what was in some ways the worst of all possible answers: people don't feel the need to show up because nobody shows up. It's not because I've acted like a jackass/an incompetent in rehearsal. It's not because singers feel that the music is too easy/hard/lame/challenging. It's not because people feel like there isn't enough direction coming from the top. The only reason people didn't come to rehearsal is because they're worried that they're going to be one of the only ones there. And that is the biggest of all possible hurdles to overcome because the only solution is to find ways for people who didn't know each other until a few weeks ago to start trusting one another. Whether you're a choral conductor, theater director, or football coach, the most important and challenging part of your job is to inspire trust; not only trust in your own judgement and leadership, but to facilitate trust among everybody in your organization. The iron test of any boss is not what his subordinates think of him, but what the subordinates think of each other. If they can trust one another to get their jobs done, then the organization runs well. If they doubt one another's motives, there are very few things an authority figure can do to inspire them to work well with each other.
Still...it cannot be denied. As hard as I may try to see the glass half-empty, things are looking up. The singers who did commit have shown just how committed they're willing to be. We had no less than six rehearsals in the two weeks before the concert to which all singers were required to come to four. Eight of the nine fulfilled that requirement (and I think the tenth who was not able to be at the concert did as well), a few came to all six. We've suddenly got enough interested people that we may double our numbers by the time we return on the June 6th (though I'm not holding my breath yet). We have singers who are interested in doing very serious work on very serious music (of all types). They are interested in knowing about the repertoire we plan, they are interested in knowing how it will be arranged, and they're interested in taking part in the whole process. Some singers want to solo, some want to write music, some want to be involved in the planning. There's no getting around the fact that this is great news.
It's an unfortunate truth that many conductors want to found their own organizations so that they can create creepy cults of personality around themselves. Having lived (and suffered) under many such conductors, I'm not much interested in being the sole arbiter of what goes on. I want as many significant contributors to what we do as we can possibly get. One of my favorite conductors, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, says that the conductor's most important job is to foster creativity in the musicians so that they feel they are as involved the process of the composition as the composer and conductor are. Smart man this Rozhdestvensky guy, even if his name is unspellable...
(Rozhdetvensky being interviewed while performing a suite from Rodion Shchdrin's opera Dead Souls. I'm much too insecure about my French to translate it literally. The gist is that every concert must be an intense emotional experience that has to sound as though it's improvised every time it's performed.)
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