Till We Meet Again

Just as I suspected, I got my final letter in the mail yesterday afternoon from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. And, just as I suspected, it confirmed the feelings I've had ever since my audition that now is not my time to serve in the choir. Without boring you with the contents of the letter in it's entirety, I'll just include some basics. "Dear sister Nelson, we thank you for auditioning...blah, blah, blah...after reviewing and comparing all the candidates and making it a matter of prayer...blah, blah, blah...You did very well in this phase of the audition process, but we are unable to invite you to join the choir at this time." The following sentence was underlined (but my blog doesn't offer that option). "We feel that you have VERY strong potential to become a member of the choir. We encourage you to call the choir office during the next round of auditions to re-activate your file. At that time you will not need to re-submit a letter of recommendation or application, and will not need to re-take the theory exam...etc. We look forward to hearing you next season."

Anyway, I'm not bummed at all. I did my best so the result is out of my hands. In fact, I'm excited about the calling Layne and I just got to plan the ward Christmas party. It will be good for me for the next several months at least to get to attend our new ward with Layne, get to know people and serve in some ward callings. The next audition cycle is less than 8 months away as it is! I wanted to post this article that was on the front page of the Deseret News on Oct. 29th. I would just post the link to it, but it won't work for some reason, so I've copied and pasted it here. It is very accurate and made me sweat just reading it!

Document no. 71 of 100 [Go To Best Hit] Monday, October 29, 2007 Deseret News [Edit Document]

Edition: Metro
Page: A01

LDS raise voices in effort to join choir Auditioners determined but 'scared to death' By Dan Barry New York Times News Service Editor's note: The Deseret Morning News occasionally runs articles from national media outlets dealing, like the following, with Utah subjects. The first to audition this evening is a baritone and computer consultant of 51 who has tried and failed twice before. He is wearing a blue blazer that offsets his pale expression of calm terror. It is time to stand naked, vocally speaking; it is time to sing. Two men in white shirts and dark ties sit at a foldout table before him, pencils poised. What they are listening for, the untrained ear may not catch: the sound of one's ability to meld with many in singing glory to God. They know it when they hear it. The men lead the baritone, Devin Asay, through a few brief exercises, then ask for a hymn of his choice in the key of his choice. Soon, in a basement space somewhere beneath the manicured grounds of Temple Square, a 17th-century hymn becomes a computer consultant's humble argument to be included in the world-famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir: Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation! O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation! "OK, Devin," says Craig Jessop, the choir's congenial director. "You'll be hearing from us probably in two weeks." The Mormon Tabernacle Choir is so familiar, so American, that its Mormon foundation is sometimes forgotten. The intolerant among us might question the presidential worthiness of Mitt Romney based on his Mormon beliefs, yet have in their collection the choir's transcendent recording, say, of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Tonight the central concern is not politics but music. Jessop and his associate director, Mack Wilberg, have 32 spots to fill in their choir of 360, whose members are paid only by the honor. The chosen will join a tradition dating to 1847, when a small choir sang for a church conference here in the Salt Lake Valley, less than a month after the arrival of the first Mormon settlers. Singing in the choir may be a calling, then, an expression of one's faith — but you still have to try out. "They are scared to death," Jessop says in sympathy. "They have five minutes to prove themselves." It was simpler, once. Jessop's own audition nearly 35 years ago consisted of singing "O My Father" in the basement for the choir's director, who listened and said: See you Thursday. Bring a letter from your bishop. Back then, once you were in, you were in for life. When Jessop joined the choir in 1973, the man beside him was in his 80s and had sung on the first broadcast of the choir's weekly radio program, "Music and the Spoken Word" — in 1929. Today, applicants must be ages 25 to 55, and can remain with the choir for 20 years or until age 60. They must be active in the LDS Church, be recommended by their bishop and live within 100 miles of Temple Square. They must also be able to sing a little. Recently, some 300 people responded to the choir's invitation to send a recording of their singing one of two songs: "O My Father" or "I Need Thee Every Hour." "That's N-E-E-D, as opposed to K-N-E-A-D," Jessop volunteers. After many hours of listening and wincing, Jessop and Wilberg cut the number of candidates in half, then cut the number again by administering a written test for musical aptitude. And then there were 94. The first of that 94 to audition in person is Asay, the computer consultant cum baritone who, at Jessop's request, begins this evening's marathon tryout with a prayer seeking God's blessing "for all those who will sing today." No Broadway cattle call has ever been so polite. Then again, no cattle call would include such written understandings as: "A call to serve in the Choir is contingent upon your continued worthiness and your bishop's recommendation." Within seven minutes, Asay's time is up. Now it is the turn of Ana Lia Borges, 39, a piano teacher and alto, who rubs her cheeks as if to coax beautiful notes from her mouth. After Borges, Christine Clark, 54, the manager of a community choir, who places her right hand on her chest as she sings, and who addresses her nervousness by saying repeatedly that she is not nervous. "Everyone is nervous," Jessop reassures her. "You're among friends." "Nervous?" answers Clark. The tension in the room is understandable. Most of those auditioning do not perform for a living. They answer telephones, restore antiques, teach children, work in cosmetology. Now they are seeking a position in a choir that sings before presidents and kings; a choir in which part of the reward, Jessop says, is that wondrous experience in which "you yourself disappear, and you become a part of another whole. The auditions continue, with Bonnie Goodliffe providing accompaniment on piano. She is more often seen playing the massive pipe organ in the Tabernacle above, which only adds to the performance anxiety of those trying out. Occasionally a voice fills the room and carries listeners away, as when Holly Abel, an administrative assistant and soprano, demonstrates her vocal reach by singing the phrase "Sweet hour of prayer" over and over, higher and higher. Years ago she promised herself that at age 40 she would try out for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and now here she is, sweetly hitting high notes at 40. More often, though, voices break, crack, fall short of the spirit felt. "Oh my gosh," one woman says after emitting an errant la. "I can do this at home so easily." "We know," Jessop says. "We factor in nerves." What rises during these hours, then, is one glorious jumble of a hymn, of how great thou art, high on a mountaintop, bread of the world, nearer my God to thee, gladly sung by people of faith. Jessop rewards them with sincere thanks and whatever hope can be gleaned from these words: You'll be hearing from us in a couple of weeks.