Children's Voices
A Promise in That Song
By Maggi Smith-Dalton
‘I had dropped the mail and saw the postcard lying on the path
and then went screaming into the house,” fifth-grader Grace Newman,
of Oak Hill, Virginia, remembers. “I was so excited.” Grace’s
successful audition for the 2003 Unitarian Universalist Children’s
Choir expanded an already rich musical life—she composes and plays
cello and piano.
Eleven-year-old Amber Wilson-Daeschlein of Williamston, Michigan, felt
“confident” on hearing the news. Ten-year-old Hannah Nyhart
of Durham, Connecticut, reports that she “whooped!” Hans Richard
Foster, a sixth-grader from Lansing, Michigan, was excited and a bit nervous.
Elizabeth Field of Fairfield, Connecticut, “jumped around the house,”
and “couldn’t wait to get the music!”
Last winter, children from congregations coast to coast submitted audition
tapes and waited hopefully to see if they would be Boston-bound by summer.
The prize: to perform in this year’s largest-ever General Assembly.
When their packets of music arrived, bound in a black binder and accompanied
by a practice CD, it was up to each chorister to practice at home until
the entire choir assembled in June for rehearsal camp at the Governor
Dummer Academy in Byfield, Massachusetts. Many, like thirteen-year-old
Rebecca Snelling, from Newbury, Massachusetts, are musically active. She
benefits from an unusually strong youth music program at the First Religious
Society of Newburyport. A church choir member since first grade, Rebecca
plays piano and saxophone, and participates in school bands and choruses.
Others, like Elizabeth Field, had the assistance of their church choir
directors.
It’s hot at Governor Dummer Academy, powerfully hot, the mid-90s.
And oppressively humid, too. The heat doesn’t seem to daunt the
members of the choir, 133 singers strong, drawn from twenty-three states
and provinces, as they sit in a semicircle, rehearsing music to the accompaniment
of whirring fans. Sixty-two congregations are represented among the choristers,
chaperones, and other participants.
Chicago-based director Emily Ellsworth propels the choir through a setting
of “For the Beauty of the Earth,” blended choral sounds arising
from flushed faces and toasted throats. A Nigerian folk song has the children
moving, with hand motions and simple choreography; a modern gospel song
encourages them to “Feel Good.” The mention of an air-conditioned
afternoon rehearsal draws spontaneous applause and cheers.
At lunch, nine choristers gather around a table to speak with me, their
trays piled high with the absolute staples: hamburgers, hot dogs, and
other picnicky foodstuffs. “The food’s good here,” I’m
told, as they hungrily dig in.
So what do they think of New England, of the choir, of the camp? “It’s
so green here,” comes one response. “In Arizona,
it’s brown, brown, brown!”
It’s a high-energy group. Most children seem comfortable even though
they have had only a day or so to adjust to camp. Anne Jones, an open,
friendly, twelve-year-old soprano from Tucson, Arizona, sits across from
me. She loves to read, and likes being a Unitarian Universalist since
you “don’t have to worry” about what to believe.
Effervescent Grace Newman’s take on explaining what a Unitarian
Universalist is to others makes me laugh out loud: “If you don’t
want a long lecture, don’t ask.”
Danielle Stein, eleven, of Nashville, Tennessee, loves soccer and Irish
step dancing and works in clay. Hans Foster draws animals, makes mazes,
likes to read, and tells me his favorite animal is a penguin. Amber enjoys
math and science and holds a first-degree black belt in tae kwon do. She
aspires to be “a singer, a scientist, an astronaut, a teacher, a
lawyer, or someone who tries to find cures for various diseases.”
Vivacious alto Katrina Turner, of Newburyport, Massachusetts, invigorates
the atmosphere with cheerful, running-full-throttle conversation. An anime
enthusiast, she acts, dances, bikes, reads, and wants to be a band conductor
when she gets older.
Hannah Nyhart gives me great hope for the future when she tells me she
intends to be president some day, because “I think the world’s
a big mess and someone’s got to go in and clean it up.” The
Connecticut chorister displays a striking range of enthusiasms, from wishing
for the Green Party’s rise to prominence to hating skirts and dresses
(“Phooey!”) and has a penchant for no-brakes-fast-bike riding
and reading “all the time.”
Most children at the table thought they were doing less singing at the
camp than they expected—but that rehearsals were a lot of work.
Extracurricular activities were declared the most fun. Asked what they
didn’t like, they told me having to stay in their rooms for quiet
time was boring. Camp stuff.
Interviews with the children were most notable, however, for thoughtful
awareness of and lively involvement with the world at large. Asked, for
instance, to name three wishes, children responded with “world peace,”
“no more world hunger,” “end to global warming,”
“enough money for everyone,” “having enough books,”
“no racism, no sexism,” and “no diseases.” Happily,
I also note some important childhood wishes: wishing that Hogwarts really
existed, the ever-popular wish for magic powers “to make my brother
disappear when he gets annoying,” and “a hundred more wishes,
magic, and a thousand cats.”
In matching blue-and-black, the choristers rise to sing at Sunday’s
Service of the Living Tradition. In the cavernous FleetCenter arena, before
more than 9,000 fellow Unitarian Universalists, their joined voices float
like a remembered dream, singing of “the beauty of the Earth”—these
bright, wonderful children are embodiments of our ever-evolving, organic
living tradition.
“Oh let us sing our song, and let our song be heard,” they
sang, fittingly, in performing “Promise of Living” by Aaron
Copland and Horace Everett, “Let’s sing our song with our
hearts, a promise in that song.”
Maggi Smith-Dalton, a vocalist, writer,
bard, and teacher, is a member of the North Parish of North Andover, Massachusetts.

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