Thanks, Mr Preston

I took a music theory class when I was a junior in high school.  Though I was an awful trumpet player, I fancied myself a composer, so I took the class.  One day, when singing through harmonizations, the teacher, Mr. Preston, said "Hey, you should join the choir."  I had never sung before but I joined the BCC Choir and Madrigal Singers my senior year and started one of the two great love affairs of my life: one with singing, the other with my wife, Robin.
BCC Madrigal Singers, 1979

I found out last night that Mr. Preston died a couple months ago.
John Preston 1926-2013
Thanks to Mr Preston, I
  • sang a Bach Cantata (#4), a Mozart mass (K. 257), Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb, and a couple dozen beautiful smaller works the first year I tried singing and learned how beautiful and profound singing could be
  • sang the prelude at a service at the National Cathedral my senior year of high school.  I joined the Choir of the Cathedral almost exactly 20 years later
  • sang my favorite piece of music, Beethoven's 9th Symphony, with a chorus and the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center the year after I graduated from college.  The only problem was it left me wanting more
  • sang the Verdi Requiem with Antal Dorati in Switzerland, after which I wandered around on my own for a couple weeks on my first trip overseas, starting a travel habit that has taken me to countries on four continents
  • sang "Blowin' in the Wind" with Peter, Paul, and Mary at the 25th anniversary of the Kent State shootings
  • sang "One" with Marvin Hamlisch and the National Symphony, as well as other concerts of Berlioz, Handel, Mozart, Prokofiev, and Stravinsky under a bunch of pretty good conductors
  • air-conducted the National Symphony above the stage by the lights as they played the main music from Star Wars after singing with them
  • did a kick-line at Wolf Trap with a dozen other guys as we sang "Hello, Dolly" with the National Symphony
  • sang the choral music from 2001: A Space Odyssey with the National Symphony and watched the movie from the stage with the orchestra playing 5 feet in front of me
  • sang for the Dalai Lama and 3 presidents (ok, I despised two of them, and even had to shake hands afterwards with one of the baddies) 
  • sang the "Amen" chorus from Handel's Messiah and "Freude Schoner Gotterfunken" from Beethoven's 9th Symphony to the Grand Canyon as I hiked down alone to the bottom as the setting sun lit the canyon walls in shades of orange, red, and yellow (those were the only things I could think of created by man that could compare with what I saw)
  • have started choruses at two high schools, directed and composed music for high school shows, and taught understanding music to college kids who found out they could enjoy classical music
  • have sung in over a dozen states and several countries and on about a dozen CDs
  • have gotten the chance to wander around the roof of the National Cathedral, the mountains of Switzerland, the beaches of Normandy, the commissary at the Kennedy Center
  • have found solace during sad times of my life in the joy of singing
  • have sung in the major halls, churches, and cathedrals of DC and elsewhere as well as in a little church in Rootstown, Ohio one Christmas Eve where they turned out the lights while we sang "Silent Night" and the only light was from the candles that lit the faces of the people in the packed church in front of me
  • found out I am a good singer, have made part of my living from singing, have sung with some wonderful people, and have gotten a chance to help people feel something while making lots of beautiful music the last 34 years

Thank you, Mr. Preston, with all my heart and soul.

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