Te Deum

In a couple of days, the combined choirs of WBU and LCU are performing Mark Haye's Te Deum. This is particularly exciting for me because it's the second time I get to perform in it. It seems, however, that the professors aren't really sure on their dates.

The Te Deum was originally to be performed in the spring of 2003. However, due to heart complications, it had to be put off a year. The professors were a little downhearted about it because it was a really exciting deal for them. They knew Mark Hayes in his younger days before he become a big name in contemporary Christian composition. I forget the story of how they came across him in recent times, but they did, and Mr. Hayes was commissioned to write this piece for Wayland.

The 2003-04 school years was a particularly busy year for choral folk. In October, the music department performed for one of the services at the BGCT, which was being hosted in Lubbock that year. In December, Wayland Singers, International Choir, and the Plainview High School Choir combined along with an area symphony (I forget if it was all from Lubbock or Plainview) to perform selections from Handel's Messiah. The weekend after that, we had the Christmas concert, which Wayland Singers was completely unprepared for. We spent so much time on the Messiah that we did not know our pieces at all. We marched up to the stage, prepared for the inevitable failure which awaited us, and performed everything we set out to do flawlessly when we had just fell flat on our faces fifteen minutes before. It was the most amazing thing.

The spring semester was less busy on the music side, but busier elsewhere. My folks recently finalized their divorce at that time. With a newly acquired Xbox, I spent a month and a half in heavy training for a Halo tournament in Philadelphia put on by Major League Gaming. We failed miserably, but we had some other good times on the trip. Becca returned to WBU because her husband at the time had gone off to war. I was ferried off to no less then three different restaurants for my birthday, all of them pretty expensive meals. I also got my first taste of handbells, which happened to be the last semester Dr. Stutes conducted it.

During all this, the choirs were busily rehearsing the newly minted Te Deum. Our copies were bound with black construction paper and held together with black plastic ring binding so we could easily turn the pages. The Singers didn't spend a whole lot of time on it, opting instead to polish the pieces in our repertoire, all of them being pieces composed by Mark Hayes. However, we were invited to rehearse the piece with International, which was probably better for us overall.

The premiere of this piece was a huge deal for the music department. On the week of the performance, Mark Hayes came to Wayland for a week and hosted a number of talks and workshops, especially for composers. As interesting as it all was, I either had class or work, so I couldn't very well participate in any of that. Was it important? Sure, but more so is getting a paycheck so I can continue to go to school. Alas. In any case, the concert was heavily advertised. Special posters were up all over campus and even made their way into the greater Plainview area. On the night of the performance, the house was packed. The Singers put on a good show. International turned around and wowed the crowd, as they usually do. Then they combined to perform the Te Deum.

It's intimidating, perhaps even seemingly impossible, to sing over an orchestra. It's also pretty intimidating to be conducted by the man who wrote your music. I mean, what if he doesn't like how you did it at all? It'd be a damned disappointment for all, that's for sure. It's also intimidating to be one of four basses, while the other seven choral sections had much better representation. But, it all worked out very well. I sang bass with Robert Black, John Ed Baker, and one other guy (I can't remember who). Alan Yarborough was the baritone solo; Sarah Wagoner was the soprano solo. It was amazing to sing in it. The audience loved it. It was an extremely high point for the music department.

A week later, after getting permission from Mr. Hayes, CDs of the performance were distributed. However, whoever burned them forgot to finalize any of the discs, so none of them could play until the burning job was completed. I think somebody figured it out and got everybody's discs fixed before the semester was over. I got it done on my own and had the CD ripped into my music collection by then. I don't know where that CD ran off to, but I still have the performance stashed away in my music collection and on my iPod.

Years have passed. I had to drop out of college and make a slow, eventual return to school through employment at Wayland. I've moved out of the dorms and lived out in the Plainview community. Being employed at Wayland has allowed me to do things like perform in Singers and in Singing Men, which I do for the love of it more so than for any credit that I don't ever need any more. Each year, I kept hoping that they would do the Te Deum again, because it wasn't just a big, cool piece, it was our piece, one that needed revisiting over time. So, imagine my surprise when I got the syllabus to Wayland Singers this last January with the statement that we would perform that very piece in our spring concert.

It's enough to make a man wax nostalgic.