Getting Ready

The first rehearsal of the choir season is tomorrow evening, so today I really began to feel the last minute pressure of being ready. The plan is to have a "sight reading party"-since no one really enjoys sight reading-and we will also have a food and fellowship time afterwards, so everyone can catch up with each other after going our own ways over the summer. Quite a few of the choir members have told me that they are eager to get back, because the choir is their small group. They miss everyone! It is hard to be apart all summer, but I'm sure we couldn't maintain enough of a quorum to perform successfully if we went all summer.

The new music is in the folders, I have been diligently doing my conducting prep, and our wonderful new accompanist, Cindy, has had the music in hand for a couple of weeks to prepare for tomorrow. We have at least three new people who have told me they will be there, and, amazingly in this age, we are looking at ordering a few more robes, because we only have 30, and they are all claimed.

Here's my deal on the robes: I am truly completely neutral about whether we should be robed or not. I like the uniform look. I am also a little concerned that younger people might not be too keen on them, and we don't want to create a barrier to their joining. But, so far, that doesn't seem to be an issue. I personally don't wear one, as the director, because I think all that fabric flapping around while I conduct creates difficulty for the singers in seeing my beat pattern-kind of like a lion tamer confusing a lion with a three-legged stool! And, when I stand at the podium and lead the congregational singing, I think it looks better if I just wear something nice and professional. Being Baptists, we don't robe our pastors and other worship personel, like the organist, though I know in some denominations this is routinely done. So that is how I have come down on it. Once in a blue moon some one will comment on this choice, so I thought I would post my thought process here so people would know how I came tho this conclusion.