USD Magazine Spring 2010

teaching How Can I Keep From Singing? L i f t Up Yo u r V o i c e

b y J u l e n e S n y d e r

p h o t o g r a p h y b y L u i s G a r c i a

The piano waits, silent now. On three risers, empty chairs are staggered, shoved aside, askew. The only noise — besides the lazy “flap flap flap” of a sturdy ceiling fan — is a muffled banging from the theater workshop next door and the sound of a lawnmower somewhere in the distance. Golden stripes of sunlight stream between the slats of old-school venetian blinds, highlighting dust motes that dance a lazy airborne path. The room has a particular smell, a specific mixture that’s both earthy and refined; ammonia and fresh-cut grass and PB&J mixed together into an ever-so-faint bouquet. But the sleepy ambiance is temporary. In just a moment, 13 chairs in two rows will fill: seven young women in front, six young men in back. The still air will stir, wakened by laughter and talking and papers rustling and coffee cups draining and backpacks being kicked under chairs. And then, with a glance or a word or the slightest gesture of a hand, the students will snap to attention, open their mouths and sing. And it will sound like perfection. Some things in life resonate like tuning forks, reverberating through the years and rippling in unexpected directions. By all accounts, the Choral Scholars program is like that: life-changing.

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USD MAGAZINE