To End with Mahler

When I was a kid I had a bad experience with Mahler. The children's choir I sang with at the time was recruited to sing about 12 minutes of "bims" and "boms" as a bells chorus in the 5th movement of his 3rd symphony. Now, I don't know if you're familiar with Gustav Mahler's work but let's just say that it tends to be a little long winded. Mahler's 3rd is the longest of them all and for a 6th grader trying to sit pretty on hard wooden risers through the last 30 minutes of music which seems to reach its climax but wander away again about 34 times, just teasing you, was like some sort of hideous psychological torture. I've often compared the end of that piece to that annoying drunk guy who seems to be at every party who keeps saying he's going home, staggers toward the door, and moments before turning the knob gets distracted by a fellow reveler and stays to make bad jokes and spill his drink for another hour. Yep, Mahler 3 scarred me for life.

Needless to say, I was less than thrilled when I found out a few months ago the this year's master work to be performed by the Lamont Symphony Orchestra and Choruses was to be Mahler's 2nd Symphony. I HATE Mahler and I was so disappointed that the last concert of my senior year and indeed my career as a music student at Lamont would be me singing 8 minutes of gushing German after sitting under the hot stage lights, crammed in with ten thousand other choristers, listening to an hour and a half of Mahler's tedious composition. As a performer, my life and all of its major mile stones have always been marked by performances. The ends of school years come with a deluge of song and it has been in these moments that I have most been able to reflect upon and celebrate the past year. It is a truly meaningful ritual to me that I have been taking part in for the better part of 14 years.

Last night I thought that my end of the year celebration had come, only this time not in the form of a grandiose choral and orchestral collaboration, but as a night of traditional Indian Kathak dancing and Senegalese drumming. That performance was amazing, the culmination of 10 weeks of study in the culture and practice of North Indian classical dance followed by an amazing performance of joyous tribal drumming led by true masters. I was thrilled with that night and content to consider it my final farewell performance at DU and Lamont. I was completely prepared to write off the following night's Mahler performance hoping just to get through it with minimal flubs to the German which was supposed to be memorized.

I've just come from performing Mahler 2, and much to my surprise, my welcome surprise, I really enjoyed it. The first hour was performed absolutely beautifully by the LSO and I was pleased to find that instead of tedious and confusing, this music was lovely and moving. Perhaps this work is just very stylistically and structurally different from the 3rd symphony, but I like to think that in the past 4 years being surrounded by music in Lamont's beautiful conservatory atmosphere has taught me to understand and appreciate music that previously lay well beyond my realm of enjoyment. In those 4 movements of beautiful music surrounding me and filling up every inch of he fabulous Gates Concert Hall, an experience shared tonight by something like 1,000 people, I knew that the music degree which I will be receiving in just a few days really does mean something. In fact, it means a lot.

I couldn't believe how fast those first 4 movements seemed to go by, I was so afraid they would drag on forever. Before I knew it the beautiful alto solo had begun and I was overcome by the triumphant melodies permeating everyone and everything. It all seemed so fitting, the perfect musical statement for the triumph of a successful college experience coming to a close. Next, the orchestra became quiet, so quiet and gentle. It was a moment of introspection. As I looked around the stage at all of my amazingly talented friends an colleagues, I thought about where we had started and how far we all have come. I am so honored to know these people and be to be a part of what we all made tonight, I can't wait to see where our lives will take us and what fantastic things they will bring to the world. Then, from offstage all around me, the famous "great call" began with disembodied horns and trumpets which seemed to hearken in a celebration of the collaborations of the past while looking forward to what the future holds. Before I knew it, the orchestra went still and quiet save for the low trembling of a timpani and I and about 100 other talented singers were ever so softly intoning the most shimmering, clear chords. It was so slow and thoughtful, quiet and meaningful. Then, as we sang on, the orchestra came back beneath us and together we mounted up to a glorious exclamation of "what we have overcome". Just then, hundreds of musicians and hundreds of music lovers, joined as one for a few brief moments as every neuron and synapse in the room fired simultaneously taking in the power that only live music can create. I sang out the last triumphant note at a full forte though I knew my voice was trembling and stopped the sound purposefully and precisely at the conductor's signal. My part was over and as the orchestra divulged a few more glorious bars of music I failed to blink back the tears.

This is what music is about. This is why I came to Lamont to study it for the past four years. I cannot imagine a more perfect end to this musical chapter of my life. Mahler, I've got to say, I guess you aren't so bad after all. Sorry for making fun of you all these years.