PeaceBang

Papa Sjogie

I had a wonderful weekend in my old hometown, New Canaan, Connecticut, attending a reunion of my high school madrigal ensemble. The “Mads” were an elite group of singers chosen from the larger concert choir by Arthur Sjogren, the man who is largely to be praised or blamed for the kind of teacher, leader and human being I am today. I wrote this article about him that appeared in the New Canaan Advertiser (aka by MotherBang as “The Agonizer”) last week.

What a joy it was to walk into that familiar choir room at 9:30 on Saturday morning with one of my best friends from that era, and to fall right back into the arms, the care, the laughter and the camaraderie of the old mads from my cohort. Chris was there from Seattle, and Jase and Steve from New York City. All three are still in the arts. Kathy and Pat and Beth and Betty came from pretty close by. Eileen had come from Oklahoma (where she is a member of the UU church there!), and Kristy from Kenilworth, Kerry from Vermont, Cindy from California. Tracey’s beautiful blue eyes are bigger than when she was in high school, with just a few crow’s feet for character, sharing photographs of her babies adopted from Russia. There were lots of groovy rectangular spectacles on faces that have aged just enough that you can tell we’ve lived, some leaner bodies, more paunchy or (in my case) meatball-shaped ones.

And there Sjogie was, white-haired and balding now but bustling-around-busy as ever, just as organized, just as focused, just as funny. As soon as he snapped us into vocal warm-ups we were upright, attentive, and owl-eyed with concentration because no one wants to screw up in front of Arthur Sjogren. Not Wall Street tycoons, not accomplished medical doctors, not well-regarded playrights or composers, not ministers, not teachers, not NO ONE, not NOhow.

He remembered everyone’s names, of course (and didn’t hesitate to admonish even the oldest alums by name if we fooled around) and we telescoped back through time as he conducted us through passable renditions of “Cantique de Jean Racine” (”Yes, I remember this one”) and “Sing We And Chant It (”Oh, I always loved this”) and through new pieces and three movements of a Mozart mass I had never sung in my life. Through sheer terror I sight-read it and by the performance on Sunday afternoon was trilling my way through the Gloria with the best of them (well, if not the best of them, at least not making glaring errors, which I saved for the very first song, and I wasn’t alone. Whoops).

Who knew I still had those high F’s and G’s in me??

So much fun. I thought that my old friends and I would have grown so far apart by now that the weekend would be full of shallow chit-chat and posturing. Oh me of little faith. The friends whose humor, intelligence, talent and goodness I had admired in high school were every bit the dear people I had bid farewell to in 1984 when I graduated and moved away for good. They were cool kids in the 1980’s and they’re cool adults now. I’m proud to be one of their crowd.

And this guy, Art Sjogren. As I said to this year’s madrigals at the Saturday night banquet, they have no idea of knowing yet that there’s no one like him, and that they’ll never work with anyone finer, more devoted, or more brilliant. “Good Lord, Sjogie, haven’t you slowed down and lowered your standards like everyone else by now,” I joked with him on Saturday morning. He responded with his wonderful, big laugh. Because he knows both of us so much better than that.

I love him a whole lot. No one deserves a more fulfilling and fruitful retirement. He gave New Canaan students 34 years of his life. You can’t thank someone enough for that kind of gift. You can just try to live into their vision of the excellence they always passionately declared is within you.

(Yea, you’re #1, alright, Sjogs.)