Moving Toward Somewhere (I hope)

I really wanted to be one of those people who figured out what she wanted to be when she grew up by age 16, or maybe 18 at the latest, stuck with it, did it, and loved it. I tried hard to be that woman. And now, much to my irritation, I’m having to admit that I am just not that kind of gal.

I fell in love with choral singing as an 8th grader, thanks to a terrific middle school choral teacher and all the great music he programmed (thank you, Mr. Kincaid). Choral singing became an even greater source of joy to me in high school, where I once again had a fantastic choral director who was very encouraging (thank you, Mr. Davidson). Chorus was where I felt comfortable, and most of my good friends were also in the choral program. It was safe, and it was home, and I loved it. It isn’t surprising, then, that in college, I studied music and began making plans to become a choral conductor myself.

And I became one. I went to college and graduate school in music. I have worked with community choruses and church choirs. And I have often enjoyed it. But much to my surprise, I never fell in love with it the way I fell in love with singing in the 8th grade. Conducting never became my passion, my whole world. In truth, it has often caused me a lot of stress because I felt like I should be more excited about it than I was, and I wondered what my problem was. Another ongoing issue: I have always lacked ambition in the field, and in the arts especially, you need some ambition to go anywhere, at least anywhere that you can make a living. I simply do not have the ambition to go get a doctorate in music or invest the huge number of hours of practice time and score study necessary to get ahead in this field. I enjoy conducting, but I do not enjoy it enough to make it my life. It’s taken me a long time to finally admit that to myself. It is still hard to verbalize it sometimes; I have to actively stop the thoughts in my own head that berate me and tell me I’m a failure. I have to remind myself that I do not regret any of my training, nor most of the time that I worked as a conductor; these experiences have shaped me and contributed to my life. But now it’s time to try something else. I see lots of people who are passionate about their work, and I want to be one of them. Life is too short for any other paradigm.

So what does all this mean? I think it means that I’m not going to actively look for work in choral conducting anymore, and I’m going to explore some other interests career-wise for a while and see if I find that passion that I’ve been missing in my conducting pursuits. Where will I end up? I don’t know. The plan for now is to do some volunteer work with community agencies that interest me, and see where those experiences lead. I have had many jobs outside of music that I’ve enjoyed over the years, so I’m using some of those memories as reference in my explorations. It is a very uncertain road. I am in equal parts excited about it and a bit afraid. But one thing that helps is having the most supportive spouse on the planet (thank you, E).

Thankfully, my change of direction does not mean that I’m leaving the choral world entirely because I will always, always be a choral singer; my passion for singing in choruses, born in 8th grade, has never left me. The Ars Nova Singers just wrapped up our season with a couple of fun concerts this past weekend, and I enjoyed them tremendously. Singing was where it all began, and I will sing as long as there is breath in my body. The question now is, what ELSE will I do?