Musical Wanderer

For anyone who enjoys Christmas, a decorated tree is basic.  Some folk like white lights and little red and green plaid bows on the tree.  Though I am a WASP, I find such trees bland and sterile.  I like colored lights and an assortment of ornaments, some new, some dating back decades, some impulse buys at the hardware store, some passed down from family members.  Though physically a decoration, the Christmas Tree becomes a statement of a family, whether the people are related or not.  One rarely gets a tree by himself or herself.   Robin and I started dating right before Christmas of 2003.  By the time Christmas of 2004 approached, we were a couple, or as Mouse says in Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City , "somebody to get a Christmas tree with."  So we got a tree.  We bought some ornaments, including a set of Harry Potter broom party favors.  We were in Sullivan's Toy Store on Wisconsin Avenue looking for presents for folks when ...

When I was a kid, Christmas was the big ask for toys.  The playset you saw advertised during Saturday morning cartoons all year.  The toy that NONE of the other kids had.  Below are two highlights of my childhood. As I became an adult, Christmas was the gathering of family, the frantic shopping a couple days before Christmas Eve, the onslaught of holiday movies, wonderful and awful (everyone has their own list of each:  I've only recently learned the folly of saying out loud what I thought the awful Christmas movies were: inevitably they will be at the top of someone's wonderful list), and the welcome vacation from school, both as a student and a teacher.  Sacred TV rituals of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and "Charlie Brown Christmas Special" sometimes gave a meaning to Christmas (I still lose it when Linus says "Lights, please?"). For years Christmas Eve was actually a reflective alone time for me.  When I was a music student in Ohio, everyone...

These days, people's lives are thoroughly documented.  A cursory review of instagram and facebook will find millions of photographs of last night's dinner, assorted dogs, cats, and children, and, if it weren't for the virus, millions of photos of attractive people drinking alcohol and smiling perfectly.  Folks under the age of 30 probably do not have to remember anything that happened in their lives since they were kids as there are plenty of photographs in the cloud or on computers and phones to remind them. As little as 15 or 20 years ago, photographs were somewhat more precious.  Before digital photography became common, photographs for most were of vacations or special occasions, as buying and developing film tended to be expensive.  So we took photographs hoping for the best, taking rolls of film to be developed after trips, waiting a week or so, and opening the sealed envelopes of prints with the eager anticipation of an awards show.  Some photos may...

Music.  Performing music and hearing people make music have been among my greatest joys in life.  Ever since I was a kid, I've been performing music.  Playing the trumpet badly in school.  Singing, somewhat better than playing trumpet, in school and then semi-professionally for the last three dozen years.  I have been lucky to perform regularly, mostly in the DC area but also across the the United States and in a couple countries in Europe.  I have also been lucky to hear symphonies, choirs, bands, singers, and even guys playing guitars on subways in the US, Europe, and Asia.  Frankly, music, and singing in particular, is part of my identity. Back in March, I was at a rehearsal at the church where I am a paid singer when the parish priest came into the rehearsal and announced the church was closed until further notice by the diocese, so no more choir.  At the time I was also rehearsing Durufle's  Requiem  and Bach's B Minor Mass (a pie...

I never cried reading a newspaper.  Until today. Last night we screamed when Howie Kendrik's home run clanged off the foul pole (I wonder how many people in DC will use that sound as their phone's ring tone.).  Robin and I kissed and hugged the cats and each other at the last out.  We fell asleep in bed saying "The Nats won the World Series." to each other in the dark as the cats made themselves comfortable on the bed. This morning I put on a Nationals cap and went out to buy a Washington Post and have a cup of coffee at Hype Cafe, the home of the best cup of coffee on Capitol Hill, perhaps in all of Washington, DC.  The woman serving the coffee and I smiled and laughed about the headline on the newspaper.  Then I sat down and started to read Thomas Boswell's column and other articles about the game. And I started to cry. I had watched all the games, so it wasn't as if anything in any of the articles was news to me.  Sure it's fun to relive the ...

When my mom and dad were born, a woman couldn't vote in the US.  A black man theoretically could vote, but his right to do so was usually denied, usually, alas, by Democrats in the south.  A woman and man of different races could not marry in most of the US.  Folks from poor backgrounds like my folks didn't really have much chance of going to college to change their lot in life.  If someone without money got seriously ill, they usually died, like my grand-uncle's young wife and their two-year old child in the flu epidemic of 1918. A little over 40 years later when I was born, a woman could vote in the US.  Barriers to black folk voting would be torn down a few years later with the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, laws pushed through by more visionary Democrats.  A few years later Medicare and Medicaid programs were enacted by Democrats so people without means had access to health care.    My father, who grew up on...

This year, I found myself in the unusual situation of shopping around for ensembles to sing with in DC.  I've been lucky over the last 30 years as I've had the opportunity to perform a lot of wonderful music with professional choirs and volunteer ensembles .  A year ago, I left a church position I'd held for a number of years and was unsuccessful in finding a new position.  Around the same time, I was let go from a professional position with another chorus, so I was without a singing position for only the second time in 20 years (Fortunately, I got a position this year with an professional octet singing Sunday services, with some pretty good singers--I like being the sucky singer in a group).  It was rather painful because, as any artist knows, part of one's identity is wrapped up in pursuit of one's art and, without it,  I was bereft of part of my identity.  I am rational and logical enough to know that eventually nobody would think I'm wor...

Current as of 2022 Professional Ensembles - For a year or more Washington Bach Consort – J. Reilly Lewis, director Palestrina Choir – Michael Harrison, director Woodley Ensemble – Frank Albinder, director Washington Master Chorale – Thomas Colohan, director National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception Choir, Washington DC - Leo Nestor, Peter Latona, directors Washington National Cathedral Choirs, Washington DC - Douglas Major, Bruce Neswick, James Litton, Michael McCarthy, directors St. Matthew’s Cathedral Schola Cantorum, Washington, DC - William Culverhouse, Thomas Stehle, directors St. Alban's Episcopal Church Choir, Washington, DC, Justin Boyer, director  Professional section leader/support for Volunteer Ensembles - For a year or more St. Paul’s Episcopal Church Choir, Canton, Ohio - Frank Wiley, director  St. Peter’s Catholic Church Choir, Washington DC - B. Andrew Mills, Kevin O'Brien, directors St. Francis Episcopal Church, Great Falls, Virginia - Larry Vote, director...

I made a summary of failures to go along with my regular resume.  I figure it's only fair to note organizations and paths that I said "Thanks, but no thanks" to over the years. Stephen Francis Pearcy Summary of Thanks, but No Thanks Education Masters in Education, Middle Tennessee State University - To teach more than two years in Tennessee, a teacher was required to have at least 12 graduate credit hours in education.  It didn't matter how and where you got them (some earned them via correspondence courses, some via night classes in the next town, some via summer classes in Murfreesboro), or what classes you took (one of mine was the History of American Public Schools, a fascinating class, yet not very useful for everyday teaching), you just had to have 12 credits.  I earned 9 credits at MTSU and 3 credits at Columbia University for a summer program I got into there.  So I was almost halfway to a Masters and...