The Show Must Go On

We’ve just finished a full weekend of concerts opening our 2009-2010 season.  They were beautiful, challenging (in a good way) and well attended.  Check out the review on  SFCV here

Being consummate professional quality artists, the girls will hit the road next weekend for another performance of the same program at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts in Southern California (link)  They’ll fly down on Saturday morning, rehearse, spend Halloween night together in costume in a strange town, sing on Sunday, and then leave the theatre and go straight to the airport to fly home.

Meanwhile, the fall semester is at its midpoint, and that means a lot of school work for the girls.  If you check out their behind the scenes footage from the performance at the President’s Cup earlier this month, www.youtube.com/sfgirlschorus you’ll see them diligently doing home work while putting on makeup and getting ready to sing.  That’s the artist’s life, and while very young, these girls are able to multi-task and handle their many responsibilities with skill and grace.  They do it because they love to sing, and it seems like excellent training for anything they choose to pursue later in life.

The idea that “the show must go on” is deeply ingrained in the true performer.   I’ve seen dancers backstage who could barely hobble into the wings, but when cued, literally leapt out into the stage lights.  Many years ago, the wonderful jazz and gospel pianist Cyrus Chestnut was performing here with a horrible cold/flu.  He could barely speak and it was clear he had a fever.  We got him a giant bowl of chicken soup and he quietly sat in the green room, steaming his face.  But then it was time for the show to start, and what a performance it was!  I don’t remember many details, but somehow he managed to incorporate themes from Grieg’s Pier Gynt Suite and several hymns in the middle of a rendition of a jazz standard like Blue Skies. Genius. 

Yesterday, before the SFGC concert in Berkeley, my husband and I attended a tragically sad memorial for the young wife of a friend and colleague.  She was an artist and teacher, and her loss is inexplicable.  After the service I told her husband that we wouldn’t be able to stay for the gathering at his home, because I had to get to a concert.  He is also a brilliant composer and performer, and I know he understood. During his wife’s illness he only left her side, reluctantly, to perform.  I also know that  music will help keep him going in the days and months ahead, and I look forward to seeing him on stage again later this fall.

When I was 15 I saw my first Broadway show here in San Francisco.  It was A Chorus Line, on tour.  I was mesmerized by all of it, and memorized the lyrics of a song that has stayed with me since, changing a little in meaning from time to time.  The words seem trite, and even downright sappy now, but for me they are still relevant to this business of making music and art out of life.  

“Kiss today goodbye, and point me toward tomorrow. We did what we had to do.  Won’t regret, can’t forget, what I did for love.”