Silence

Dateline: Seattle. Tallis Scholars Summer School

We're wrapping up - checking out of rooms, returning music, exchanging addresses. It is going to be very hard to go back to my regular choir. I have loved working with such an accomplished group of singers...and what a joy to rehearse without all the parts being banged out on the piano.

I know it sounds crazy, but I loved the precision of the diction. The air was full of spittle as we enunciated the concentrated words of the Miserere....and 59 singers articulated two precisely placed "t"s in the phrase "et tibi dabo" from Tu Es Petrus.

After the concert last night, we walked back to the chapel to sing Compline for the last time. At the end, Andrew asked us to sing the 8-part Crucifixus again. It was far better than what we did in the concert - powerful and charged with emotion. Omar and I talked about it later, and he put it best: I left my heart there, with the Crucifixus.

I think we all did.