The Heart of the Choir

I spent a few weeks in Vienna last summer. My trip culminated in a concert on July 4 in Vienna's Konzerthaus, in which I conducted a festival chorus and orchestra in a performance of the Mozart Requiem. After intermission, Greg Hobbs conducted Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass. Greg is the Director of Music at Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas, where he oversees one of the finest programs of church music in the country.

Greg and I are good friends, and we speak or e-mail frequently. Our conversations usually revolve around "talking shop." His program is large and complicated, and includes the allocation of professional personnel and resources to achieve a dizzying schedule of services and musical performances. Highland Park employs some of Dallas' finest singers, who lend incredible vocal depth and passion to their singing.

Although Greg oversees a program that functions at the highest possible professional level, he reminded me last week of the true heart of the church choir. That heart is different from the professional musical resources required to accomplish the high standards of a major program. It is the organ at the center of the body, pumping the life-giving blood throughout the organism. It is the dedicated volunteer singer.

While we were in Vienna, I met a man name Sid who had grown up singing in the children's and youth choirs of Highland Park Presbyterian Church. He had then joined the adult choir, where his faithfulness inspired the other singers, and where he had sung for over thirty years. At a dinner in Vienna he organized a quartet of men to entertain the crowd. During the festival he volunteered to sing in additional concerts to help balance the sections of the choir. His fountain of good humor and commitment drenched everyone.

I was shocked last week when Greg told me that Sid had taken the H1N1 virus, and its attack had been so severe that he had succumbed. The heart of the choir stopped.

A large memorial service was planned, and I can only imagine how that great choir sang for their fallen friend. The pulse of the choir will return, for Sid wasn't the only dedicated volunteer. In church music the next service is always looming, and the Highland Park Choir will rise to the challenge. But they will need a painful bypass operation, followed by some recuperation. Things won't sound or feel the same. For Sid is representative of the choir members everywhere who pump the blood and bring life to the mind and soul of worship; the amateurs who respond to a calling much higher than merely professional. When we lose the irreplaceable, we can't help but ask existential questions for which no answer comes. But we must not let our questions drown out our gratitude for a life so musically and spiritually lived. Those of us who lead church music are unspeakably grateful for people like Sid.