| A Different Ode to Joy |
Last June, I retired from the teaching of foreign languages in middle school. Long before the actual date of retirement, I had decided that I must continue working with young people. Working, in both senses of the word: "collaboration" and "molding" or "forming," with young people makes me feel good about myself, and is and always has been one of my major goals in life. Though foreign language teaching has been my profession, singing has been my avocation. My friend Christopher Walter, conductor of the Phillips Academy Chorus, and I agreed that I could join that chorus, even though I am not a member of the Phillips faculty. Phillips uses adults in its music programs, in the light of performing as a community. (I remember Herr Paul Gropp, of Exeter's German department, and other adults, too, as members of the PEA Orchestra in the 1950s.) Part of this year's music program was a concert of the combined forces of the Exeter and Andover orchestras and choruses, held on April 8 at Andover, and on April 9 at Exeter. Mr. Walter conducted at Andover, and Ms. Jennifer Hand, Exeter's talented new choral director, conducted at Exeter. What marvelous experiences! There were 179 chorus members, 17 little children, 66 orchestra members and two conductors combining efforts after several months of practice in two different locales, performing together a very difficult and demanding work. In my 47 years since Exeter, I have had many great singing experiences, some of the most wonderful of which were in Symphony Hall, Boston, or at Tanglewood. I have sung under the batons of maestros such as Charles Munch, William Steinberg, Sir Colin Davis, Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa. One of the greatest of these was singing Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" under Bernstein. But "Carmina Burana" at Exeter and Andover was a different ode to joy for me. It was deeply moving, yet, at the same time, so much fun! With Exeter tenors on my left and Andover tenors on my right, I was singing as an alumnus of Exeter's chorus and a member of Andover's chorus. I felt as if I were 15 years old and at Exeter again. After the Andover concert, my sister, who had attended almost all of my Exeter concerts in the 1950s, said I had that same ear-to-ear smile on my face that night as I had when singing under Arthur Landers. I don't doubt it! During the last two weeks of preparation for these concerts, and especially during the concerts themselves, I thought back to what Exeter (and, yes, Andover, too) is all about. Somewhere I read about one of Principal Tingley's first visits to Exeter. He was told by a student how hard the crew team had worked to get a national crew championship. The student then added: "But that's nothing special at Exeter." Too often we think of the Exeter-Andover rivalry as a competition, in this society which, as stated by Jack Hughes '53, "loads the news media with controversy (since that seems to sell). Yet, in retrospect, I think the competition with Andover we saw at Exeter...was one of seeking higher levels of excellence." In the case of these two concerts, I feel that both Exeter and Andover were using collaboration, rather than competition as the means to help their students seek higher levels of excellence. These musical extravaganzas vividly brought back to me the many wonderful, varied and uncommon opportunities I had at Exeter. I am grateful to Exeter beyond what words can describe. Indeed, none of these big musical events in which I participated after Exeter would have happened for me if I had not started my serious musical avocation at Exeter under the mentorship of Arthur Alexander Landers. As a matter of fact, even my professional career as a foreign language teacher was launched at Exeter when Percy C. Rogers took me under his wing as a scared lower middler in his very difficult French II class. I feel doubly blessed for having been nourished by these two great men. Talking with present-day students at both Exeter and Andover, I have not been at all hesitant to mention my musical experiences as an adult. But as I was relating these experiences, I made it quite clear that I owe them to my beginnings at Exeter. I thank Arthur Landers, Percy Rogers, Wells Kerr, Hammy Bissell, Bill Saltonstall and all the others who helped me start off on a lively and invigorating life as an adult. As for the youth of today, I urge them to take full advantage of all that their Exeter or Andover education can give them, since "Finis Origine Pendet." -W. Douglas Halsted III '53
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The audience was hushed. The conductor gave the upbeat. With the downbeat, three bassoons, a contrabassoon, a tuba, timpani, two pianos, six cellos and three bass violins struck a fortissimo monochromatic D for one slow beat. On the second beat, the other members of the orchestra also entered, joined by a chorus of 179 singers: "O Fortuna! velut luna, statu variabilis..."
