What Chorale means to me
Becky Fishburn
I shared these thoughts at Mike’s retirement party, but thought I would write them out to start off our Blog. Here goes.
I joined Columbia Chorale in 1994 or so. My youngest child was still a toddler and I was living, as I still do, up at Lake Wenatchee where Stan and I were the Directors of Tall Timber Ranch, a Presbyterian church camp. With three young children, a very demanding job and living in a remote area, I often felt very isolated. I had few friends outside of the camp context and few opportunities to get away. As a college vocal Music Ed major, I loved great choral music and the joy of joining with others to create it, and missed it deeply. Singing camp songs just wasn’t filling that ache in my heart. I heard about Chorale while a Wenatchee church was up for a retreat, and decided to come down and check it out. Brad Miller was conducting then, and I knew at once as I sat down and opened up the binder full of wonderful music, that I had found my people. The smell of the music, the vocal warm-up, the blending of voices, the complete concentration on something other than my children and job was like water on a parched throat. I arrived tired, and left feeling invigorated even though I had an hour drive home. I have hardly missed a Monday night since. When Brad left and Mike Hibbett came to conduct us, I was worried at first, but Mike brought a wonderful music selection, excellent rehearsal skills and insights, a kind and natural style and growing numbers of singers. He has built the Chorale to the reputation and quality it enjoys today. I will miss him deeply but I know Chorale is bigger than any one of us. That’s kind of the whole point. It takes all of us together to create those “choral moments”, as he used to say. Bless you, Mike. And thanks for helping create my Monday night oasis. We will pay it forward.