Hopes and Endings

For I while I've been intending to blog about a certain topic. (I say that alot, don't I?)

I alluded to it two posts ago when talking about our financial plans. That I had a feeling just after Christmas that I wouldn't be getting my HCC pay in the fall.

Well, it's happened.

I've been conducting with the Hamilton Children's Choir since 2001. My son was still in hospital when I left one evening to go and interview for the brand new position of Prelude Choir conductor (at that time simply called the Preparatory choir). I've spoken of my long association with the HCC before--you can see it here.

After David Davis left the HCC, we were blessed with an amazing new artistic director, a woman new to our country only a few years before. Zimfira Poloz hailed from Russia and was/is world reknowned in choral music for her skill with young voices. She became both our AD and AD of the High Park Children's Choirs of Toronto.

It didn't take long until changes started coming down the pike. We soon discovered that we now needed a 'middle step' choir to bridge the age and skill gap between Prelude and the Concert Choir, which Zimfira conducted. So the Concert choir became the Chamber Choir and a new conductor was hired for this new bridge choir, now labeled the Concert Choir. Around the same time, we sought to fill the gap we saw with older choristers and boys who's voices had changed. The Youth Choir was formed, conducted in part by another of our former choristers. All through this, a 5th ensemble, originally called the Chamber Choir when David formed it many years ago, was renamed and refocused as the Girls Choir. For a short time I also took on a boys choir, called Allmen. Our original goal there was a soprano boys group, but the numbers didn't support that, so I had both changed and unchanged voices. They were a great bunch.

I had interviewed for the Concert Choir conducting position but was passed over for another very qualified woman, former AD and founder of the Oakville Children's Choir, Glenda Crawford. Glenda went on to doctoral studies after only a year with us, so the following year, Gerald Yun of University of Waterloo took over. He too only worked with us for a year before moving on. The current conductor is another Russian musician, with doctorate level training. She's doing a fabulous job with them.

Not getting that job in the first place had been a little hard to swallow. I had recently (well, within a couple years previous) interviewed for the Artistic Directorship for both the Brantford Children's Choir and the newly formed Children's chorus of Chorus Niagara and while not being awarded these positions, had received very positive and encouraging feedback in both situations. However, 'failing' in this way within my own organization was pretty discouraging. I think that was when the first seeds were planted that perhaps my future with the HCC was going to be limited.

In the February of 2007, I began homeschooling the kids. In the spring of 2008, I took on the co-leadership of MountainKids, my church's children's program. In the fall I started conducting with Strings, Etc!, a music organization based in Ancaster, made up mostly of homeschooled children. I took on their youngest choir of children the same age as Prelude, 8-10. In the May of 2008 I welcomed my fourth (and last) child.

Numerous times a week, friends, family and perfect strangers tell me "I have my hands full".

Well, I can't deny it.

Things with the HCC continued to subtly ebb and flow. Some days/weeks I was happy and encouraged, feeling that I was doing a good job. Other days I would be discouraged and confused. Christmas of 2007 was one of those down ebbs. I tend to be fairly sensitive to verbal and body language cues. (Some might call it paranoia). After the Christmas concert, I noticed that Zimfira came back to the green room and didn't have her usual positive feedback....she kinda glossed over that. A few days later she had a list of criticisms for me. I was so discouraged over the holidays that I very nearly quit right then.

Perhaps that was why I was taken with the idea 2 months later to pursue my masters degree. I started researching and talking with a few knowledgeable people. In early April, at 8 months pregnant, I took a trip to London to speak with the professor that would, if I went through with the whole thing, be my advisor or at least a prof I would spend alot of time learning under. She was quite helpful and extremely gracious. She helped me see that working on such a degree at this time of my life--about to have my fourth baby, homeschooling my children, etc, etc, was really not feasible. We would have had to move to London, as the course is 3 years long, full time, completely on campus. Nothing by correspondence or other long distance means. I left both assured that I was on the right path and depressed that further degrees were not likely in the cards for me.

And so I continued feeling from time to time that I was not measuring up. When having to cancel out on a staff meeting due to babysitting failure (I think actually my own failure at setting it up on time) I felt a bit of a sting that I was the only artistic staff member that had to do so--and I don't just mean at that time--that I was the only artistic staff member that ever needed to do that. Invitations to concerts or ads for seminars sent to my inbox were consistently ignored, largely because I would have another commitment that night--usually family related, or the thought of dragging myself out on one of my free evenings was unbearable. These days, post-eight o'clock pm is sacred time and I look forward to it all day. It's not just my time to have a few vegging-out-thoughts-for-myself-actually not moving my body moments, but the only time to talk to my husband. When books talk about how difficult it is to maintain and grow a marriage relationship when the kids are young, they ain't kiddin'.

I've often heard however, that when the Lord is directing you down a certain path, he doesn't use discouragement. Now, I don't think there's any scripture supporting this, (if you know of any, please let me know), but it does seem in line with God's personality.

After this past Christmas concert, I sat down and wrote out my letter of resignation. I'll admit, it was 80% fueled by discouragement and feelings of ineptitude, and 20% fueled by the recognition that I'm too busy and need to cut things out of my life to be able to manage what's left. But of course, being busy is a western-world wide problem and totally acceptable for a reason to resign a position, so my resignation reflected close to the opposite percentages.

I didn't hand it in. I 'sat' on it and prayed and pondered.

Then in February, Zimfira asked me to have a meeting. I won't go into the details of the meeting, but she made it clear that she was expecting me to make a choice about staying or leaving. It was mostly clear that if I felt I was able to give more time, energy, creativity, etc, and do alot more in terms of professional development (go back to school, take workshops/seminars, go to lots of concerts, etc.) that they would be willing to let me do that, and stay on as conductor.

I had had a gut feeling from the moment she had set up the meeting that something was going to come to a head, so I had actually printed out my resignation and had it in my purse. I didn't pull it out at that moment, as I realized I needed to edit it a bit. I went home and did that and had it emailed to the board before the day was done.

In alot of ways, it was a very sad day.

And so this weekend marks the end. We have a massive concert planned, taking place at Hamilton Place. It's really the hugest deal we've ever undertaken. It seems that these past few weeks have been fraught with political, personal and choral pickles. In alot of ways, Sunday night cannot come quickly enough for me.

But even sitting here writing...I stop for a moment to grit my teeth and swallow. I blink a little faster and wonder if I'll make it through Sunday afternoon without a few tears.

I suppose that's ok.