Choral Tradition

by Josie Frazier

Every year I sat in church pews watching my brother perform. Eight performances, two weeks, sitting and watching through droopy eyes. One year when I was about seven years old a woman had a heart attack in the audience. As the EMTs burst through the door all the choirboys kept their eyes fixed on the tailcoated director. Stone-faced boys, ages six through eighteen wearing red and white robes sang through O Holy Night as the woman rolled through the aisles on a stretcher. I heard, Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices, through flashing red and blue lights. I can’t help but think, which was the bigger spectacle? The woman, or the boys? After the show I stood with my family waiting for the boys to walk out of the dressing room, garment bags in hand. I waded through a cloud of teenage Axe Body Spray to find my brother, whose preferred scent was Old Spice Swagger. In the car ride home he talked about all the things I had failed to notice: the altos were flat, the tenors were sharp, how it was so difficult to keep singing while a woman was dying. I didn’t understand why they had to do that. I learned later that in choir, of course, the show must go on. And then I was on that very stage. At age fourteen girls were allowed to join, pushed to the very edges of the risers, nearly invisible. Seven year old me hadn’t even noticed them, but nonetheless, seven years later there I was. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a boy’s eyes droop, his knees give out. The boy behind him grabbed his white robe, balled it up in his fist, and pulled him back upright. And then, of course, both of the boys kept singing like nothing had happened. I felt guilty for even looking. Fall on your knees, as he was falling, O hear the angel voices as he was pulled back up. I heard the altos go flat. And then I understood my brother.