It’s chorus photo time again. Each season we take voice-part photos to help pay for the brochure handed out to a couple thousand people over our four concerts.
I used to be a tenor with Mary, so we would cook up an idea and tell the fifteen or so guys, and they would do whatever we said. We were smart enough to supply props. One year tenor Linda weighed in on ideas as well. We wore ugly sweaters, dressed as Roaring 20s people, were elves, angels, holiday bakers, etc., etc.
Then we got a new director, and he changed my voice part to alto. Many people got their voice parts changed, but I have to say going from a tenor in the bass clef to an alto in the treble clef is a pretty big change. There are many more high alto notes that I can’t hit than there were low tenor notes that I couldn’t sing.
But I digress.
During an unusual cleaning frenzy, I found a dozen angel halos and told leader Nancy Alto that the forty altos should be angels dressed in white. She went along with the idea, but then the complaining began. No one had white bottoms and a few didn’t have white tops. I rounded up shorts, pants, tops and angel wings. It turns out that my ten Halloween tubs had several sets of wings in them. Yes, I donated quite a bit of stuff while searching for angel parts, so now I’m down to six tubs.
Then the emails and texts started coming. I offered to save wings and halos for certain people who asked. I ran into one alto’s mother at the local thrift store and promised her daughter a halo. I helped another woman figure out her bottoms.
One woman insisted on being an arch angel in black. Funny? Rebel? Halloween in the back of her mind? It is, after all, the middle of October. I think she has seen the light and will wear white.
I wrapped three empty packages in shiny silver cherub paper for props. I found three more shiny bags in my sewing room. I gathered up shiny belts, and I offered to come early. Still, out of 40 altos, we won’t have everyone participating.
You know what? It is what it is. Those of us who do it will have fun posing. Hopefully the photo will come out, and no one will show up as a purple angel or a pink one. If they do, either would be better than black. As we sing the godly songs about For Unto Us a Son is Given, I’d like to think that pink and purple angels would take part. A black one, not so much.
We’re going to sing Hallelujah and The Glory of the Lord. None of our songs are about Lucifer or the bottomless abyss of Hades where fallen angels wear black and torment the organizers of The Devil Made Us Do It photo shoot, flames optional.
Yes, this has been a silly post. I’ll let you know how the real photo turns out. Some of us are missing from the one above.
Stay tuned.
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 