It really pays to read your email on a regular basis. Sometimes I forget that, however, and end up with some weird but interesting results.
Back in 2020, we’d been told that we would be producing a Broadway-themed show in which people would be invited to create their own solo tracks for the concert. These would in turn be put together to form one or two concerts, depending on how many tracks were received as well as which would be repeated over the course of two nights. In January 2021, it was decided that the Broadway show would be shelved. In its place we would have two virtual concerts, a Portland Gay Men’s Chorus retrospective concert in March as well as a separate show for our subgroup Cascade in April, which had already been planned.
Of course, I’d either conveniently forgotten about this second email or had misplaced it. I’d mistakenly thought we were still doing the Broadway show and was madly trying to figure out which song to best solo with. Making this more complicated for me was that even though we’d been told quite plainly that more upbeat fare would be favored over ballads, and in fact only one ballad would be allowed per evening of the show, the only song that I could think of that had gotten me through most of the pandemic that I really wanted to use was a Stephen Sondheim piece from Into the Woods entitled, “No One Is Alone.”
In the end, with the deadline approaching for the (now nonexistent) concert audition for our Broadway concert, I performed “No One Is Alone” on nothing more than my cell phone. Very conveniently and ironically, of course, I live at home alone. I did several takes before deciding on the best one to send in, went to the link for the solos, and tried to send my piece in.
Nothing happened.
I did this several times, and still no response. In desperation I went to our chorus president and asked what was going on, who replied that the Broadway concert had indeed been cancelled. He forwarded me the email, which as it turns out I still had in my files anyway.
Oops.
So, no audition was necessary since no show would occur. Yet I still had the video, and it wasn’t too bad for something shot in solitude. I put the video on YouTube, which is where you’re seeing it now. If there’s any moral to this story, it’s that you should always listen to your conductor and chorus members – at least 99.5% of the time.
Kudos also goes to two members of our subgroup, Cascade, who performed a wonderful duet of this song last winter. If the video ever becomes available, I’ll include it here.
Freedman on the Go 
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