Ah, the life of a star!

An expectant hush settled over the audience as the performers took the stage. Spotlights sparkled off sequined gowns and glowing tuxedos. A few listeners rustled their programs restlessly, others moved to the edge of their seats in anticipation. The room crackled with tension as the conductor waited for silence.

The choir drew a corporate breath.

Music warmed the room, waves of harmony and dissonance rolled over the astonished crowd. Listeners bathed in sound, relaxing in complex chords and stirred by passionate words. Softly at first, the music spread like sweet perfume, passing the first rows of the audience, the second, the third, gradually filling the entire room.

The audience luxuriated in sound.

As the notes rose, fell, then rose again, the listeners became one with the sound, became part of the choir, became part of the music itself. For thirty minutes the music rolled on, evoking passions the audience thought long dead, stirring dusty hearts and dry emotions. Ebbing and flowing, the sounds washed wave over wave through the listening crowd.

The song ended.

The music faded, lingering in dark corners of the auditorium before exiting up through the ceiling. Notes ascended, one by one, until only the memory of the notes was left, and then, not even the memory, but silence. The audience sighed, trying to capture the last few chords as they melted away, sad at the loss, but changed forever by the caressing sounds.

Finally, roused from their somnulence, first one listener shouted 'Bravo!', then another, then another. The silence was filled with applause as the audience jumped to their feet. 'Encore! Bravo!' echoed through the auditorium.

The singers took a bow.

Still the applause continued, the audience expressing their feelings in the only way they knew how. Women fainted, men wept. The applause crescendoed to peak, more shouting, more emotion, more, more, more.

The choir walked off the stage.

San Francisco Choral Artists participated in the Western ACDA conference in Anaheim this past weekend. For more information about the choir I sing in, go to www.sfca.org.