The Second Five Years
Dynamism Out of Stability -- the Heckler Era (cont.)
Pre-rehearsal warm-up sessions were full of surprises - back rubs, dancing, "yawn-sighs", singing through a "hole" in the middle of the forehead. We were amazed to discover that the distance from B up to C was longer than the distance from C back down to B. We have never quite figured out what Einstein would make of that, although he could probably handle it better than Newton!
Members of the Society in good standing in the fall of 1977 were "grandfathered" into tenured status, but newcomers had to survive a demanding audition. As applicants began to exceed the Society's practical capacity of 60, qualified singers had to be turned away. Even the "grandfathered" submitted to a compulsory audition in 1981, causing a good deal of anticipatory agony that was allayed when the time came by Elma's caring and supportive audition style. And of course we knew in advance that the purpose of the audition was not to "fire" us but to get a sense of our strengths and weaknesses in interest of building a better blend of voices.
There were two important milestones in 1978. First, Joan E. Gurniak joined the Society as accompanist on piano and organ, replacing Kim Heindel. Joan is music director and organist for All Hallows Episcopal Church in Wyncote. As accompanist, she sets an impossibly high standard of focused alertness - never misses a downbeat, plays eight parts on eight staffs with consummate ease, sneaks the piano quietly into an a capella rehearsal to sustain the wavering tenors, slyly hits the concluding chord at the end of an a capella passage to give the chorus a gentle measure of its flatness.
Second, there came to be celebrated the start-of-season ritual of a full day's musical workshop. These began at Deer Park near New Hope and moved this fall to Bucks County Community College.
