Senior Farewells (2004 and 2005 and 2008)
Speeches given by seniors at our March concerts
March 2008: Gregory Macksoud '08
Good Evening, my name is Greg Macksoud. In the next
several minutes I will attempt to give you a glimpse of Choir. Like so many
have done before me and countless more will carry on, I stand here tonight, a
testament to the wonders of this experience. In the past, senior farewells have
been directed at the audience, while the Choir remained in their stalls. I am
honored with the distinction tonight of being able to face my fellow members.
And although they’re not behind me right now, I feel grateful that they’ve been
there these past four years. Tonight I’ll tell you what Choir has meant for me
during that time. s
When thinking about what encompasses Choir, many things
come to mind. Farm parties (an orientation of sorts for new members), visiting
Europe and Father Bede’s "short and rarely sent" emails are just a few of those
things. But those wondrous events aside...Choir...for the most part revolves
around time spent inside these church walls.
It is a unique experience in
which each individual benefits in his or her own way, all the while
participating in the collective gain of the Choir, hence, making my speech
simply a glimpse. Belonging to THIS group provides a foundation, a
structure upon which one could and usually does find a certain
comfort right from the beginning.
I joined Choir apprehensively. As
a musically interested freshman who couldn't read a lick of music...Choir...and
Father Bede appeared rather daunting. Despite these initial fears and after
some more thought and a friend's encouragement, I found myself here, practicing
in the stalls behind me. And while my ability to read music has remained rather
stagnant, my involvement in Choir, among other groups on campus, has proved to
be the most rewarding.
When applying to college, I was
wrestling with a lot of questions, the most important of which revolved around
my faith.
I remember writing on my St. A's
application that I wanted to go here in order to strengthen that faith, and be
provided with a nurturing environment enabling that faith to grow. Above all
else...choir has done this for me.
My personal journey in choir embodies my
growing appreciation and realization of my faith, particularly through prayer.
Prayer was never something I was drawn towards or did often until joining
Choir. Singing these past four years every Monday, Wednesday and Sunday night
has strengthened my prayer life. I have learned that the songs we sing are
prayers. That when I find myself not knowing what or how to pray,
I can return to repeating lyrics learned in Choir.
I especially like the times before concerts when Father Bede has us seated with
our eyes closed. He runs through the list of the songs we'll be singing that
night and invites us to call to mind a person to whom that song will be
dedicated.
Offering up a song is one of the many things that the Choir encounters as a
group, but experiences individually. I'm sure many of you sitting out there
tonight had songs offered up for you before the program began. The sense of
prayer and belief I've found in choir has yielded a sturdy base upon which I can
grow and always come back to in later life. I think anyone who enjoys music can
understand this sense of awareness and comfort that prayer through song can
bring. This might also explain the large number of people who continually wish
to participate in Choir.
Though Choir is a personal experience, it is also about the collective and most
notably the sound of that collective. The hard work and commitment that
each Choir member puts in is present in every song that you hear. It is
extremely gratifying after many hours of practice to feel chills at the
completion of a chord or to have a smile forced out of you when singing a
favorite song. The sound of the Choir is a wonderful stress reliever and
incredibly uplifting.
I say this with authority, after hearing time and time again from people who
have heard this sound tell of its HEALING CAPABILITIES, its MEDITATIVE SPIRIT
and its PRAYERFUL STRUCTURE. I invite all of you to call these things into mind
as we complete our concert tonight. As you listen to the last two songs,
entitled "Thou Hidden Love of God" and the "Hallelujah Chorus" call to mind
someone in prayer.
Before I conclude, here is some advice to
my fellow choir members. As Father Bede has said many times: "God is an artist
and artists love other artists.” My advice is this: KEEP SINGING; use this gift
and all the others that God has given you in wherever life takes you. There is
no greater praise we can give God than to use our talents for his praise and
glory. I also believe there are few better pleasures than coming to the
realization that you've done just that. I experienced this first hand on a
Spring Break Alternative trip last year.
While volunteering in Mississippi,
my SBA group attended a mass for which there was no music...ever. Several of
the Choir members were on this trip with me and we offered to sing an opening
and closing hymn. We sang, "I Love You Lord" and "Amazing Grace," two of my
favorite pieces. To see the pleasure and gratitude on so many faces brought
upon by the simple use of a gift we'd be given was inexplicable.
I have enormous gratitude to all of you who
have made my time in choir so enriching and unforgettable. Don Cox, Br. Andrew,
Bobby, Father Bede…know tonight how grateful one can be to the experience you
provide. To the students in choir whom I'm privileged to call my friends,
especially the 24 other seniors that also complete their journey tonight...you
will live in my heart for a long time. Without your sacrifice, without your
hard work and devotion to the music and without your voices harmonizing praise
to the God we believe in, this college experience would have never been so
fulfilling. Thank you all…
March 2005: Edward "Teddy" Howland '05
For the past four years, I’ve sat in the choir stalls behind
me, right there, in the front row of the tenor section. I’ve participated in
one European concert tour, eight concerts, one hundred Masses and three hundred
hours of rehearsal. Give or take a few. The effect: Priceless. Although these
figures give an approximation of what choir does, they cannot come close to
relating what choir is.
What is choir? You could ask this question to any of the
current students or alumni of the choir, and you would get a different answer.
Choir is an intensely personal experience; you get out of it what you put into
it. My own experience with choir has been a journey of four years. Like many of
the people sitting behind me, I got a letter from a ‘Fr. Bede’ in the middle
of the summer, telling me all about choir. I had done chorus in high school, and
knew that I wanted to continue singing on a weekly basis. I was excited also
because that spring the choir was going to Europe for the first time. August
rolled around, and I came to St. A’s for orientation. I met Fr. Bede. That
experience, like choir, is something that each student has a very different
impression of. During orientation, he gave me a very valuable piece of advice.
Here it is. (Hold up I.D.) Most of you can’t see my I.D. card, but I looked
like this. Long hair, pudgy, in a word, cannon fodder for the fast paced and
ruthless environment of college. Fr. Bede’s piece of advice were these words
“Do you trust me?” “Um...yes?” At this point I was looking at Fr. Bede a
little askance. “Get a haircut.” These words for me represent choir.
Needless to say, I did, in October of my freshman year.
Getting a haircut was about change and discovery; not simply
continuing that which you had done in high school, but a new look, uncovering
and coming to an understanding about who I was going to become. As singers in a
choir we struggle to uncover the meaning of a text and a piece, and work to
communicate that meaning to the congregation or audience. Choir is about the
development from the first day that we hear a piece to the last note of the
final performance of that same piece. The journey that I have taken has been
wonderful. There are pieces of music that I start out loving, and end up being
‘blah’ about, reversely, there are works that I have a hard time liking, and
then suddenly they click. For me, the feeling of a piece working is the greatest
in choir because you know in your gut that the audience will get what you’re
trying to convey. And each note builds on the last until you don’t want the
piece to end; no one does.
One of my favorite moments in choir is when Fr. Bede gives us
a meditation. We close our eyes, follow our breathing, and relax from the
stresses outside the church walls. It is in many ways the essence of the choir
experience. We are both united by our common actions, and yet each of us
experiences these meditations differently. These meditations are wonderful
because they give me the opportunity to not only reflect on myself, my day, how
I’m feeling, giving my mind a check up, but also on the music we’re
performing.
I’ve entitled this farewell “Oh God Behold Your Family
Here” because at its heart I believe the choir is a family. We are brothers
and sisters on a musical journey towards understanding God. Without God, we
would not have a purpose here; without any of us, the music would falter;
however it would not fail, as even one voice can sing praise, but it would not
represent the fullness of what we can produce together. We laugh together, at
some of the ridiculously funny things that Fr. Bede makes us do for warm-ups, we
sing together, forming harmonies and soaring over the lyrics, and we cry
together. Well, okay, maybe that’s just me. How many of you here tonight are
former members of the choir? Raise your hands up nice and high. The rest of you
look around. These are our extended family; always welcome at reunions, but they’ve
moved too far away to be part of our regular gatherings.
The choir has been a big part of my life these past four
years. I’ve gotten hundreds of e-mails, sang thousands of notes, laughed a
lot, experienced the power of music and most importantly, made some friends
along the way. As I go out into the world post-choir and post-St. A’s, I’ll
obviously no longer be a part of the choir. But through the music that we’ve
made here tonight, and on nights like this, with the help of technology, I will
be able to recreate the wonderful feelings that I’ve had throughout my four
years.
It’s been a long road, and this journey is coming to an end.
Many thanks to Fr. Bede, Bobby, Br. Andrew and everyone who makes choir
possible. There will be other journeys, but none quite like this one. Goodnight,
and God Bless.
March, 2004: Michael Henessy '04
For the last 4 years, every Monday, Wednesday and Sunday night seemed a
little bit different to me than other nights of the week. For the last 4 years
there were 2 short hours on Family Weekend that seemed a little different than
any other hour in that weekend. For the last 4 years, there was a Saturday night
in December and a Saturday night in March that seemed a little bit different to
me than other Saturday nights. I needed these moments; they sustained me. They
made my college experience here at St. Anselm complete. I honestly cannot
imagine what these past 4 years would have been like without the presence of
this Choir in my life. It is an experience that is difficult to explain, though
I am sure that many of us here have had similar experiences. It is an experience
that is difficult to explain, but most of the students sitting peacefully behind
me tonight have an idea what I mean. If they don’t, they eventually will. It
is an experience that is difficult to explain, but necessary to tell.
Over the course of the past few years, I have been asked a few times by
various people why I joined choir. It is a story that I enjoy to tell. Before I
begin this story though, it is important to understand that before I came to
college, I would never have been considered the “choir” type. Sure, I
enjoyed music and I played music but never would I consider joining a chorus or
a choir. That just wasn’t my thing. I didn’t really sing at all. I had
nothing against it; it was just something that I stayed away from. I had no
intention whatsoever of singing when I got to college. Again, it just wasn’t
my thing.
The summer before I was a freshman I got a few packages from Fr. Bede,
containing CDs of recent choir performances. This honestly puzzled me: I had no
clue who Fr. Bede was, how Fr. Bede got my name and why he would ever think I
would join something like the College Choir. I put these CDs aside with the
plastic wrap still on them, thinking to myself, “there’s no need to listen
to these”. I didn’t think about the choir again for the rest of the summer.
As many current and former students know, orientation weekend can be a
very draining experience with many highs and lows. For most, the weekend does
not ease the very normal feelings of confusion and nervousness, it just adds to
it. The same was the case for me. I was ready to take on college; ready for all
the challenges I would meet in the coming years and ready to enhance my upcoming
experience by joining various clubs and organizations: one of which, by the way,
was not choir. Then I really don’t know what happened. I remember going to the
freshman activities fair in Cushing with my parents. I remember seeing one
familiar name of an organization. I remember seeing Fr. Bede and mentioning to
him that I got his CD’s over the summer. I remember his eyes lighting up when
I told him I was a tenor. I remember telling myself “Just try it out, see what
you think, you can always leave if you don’t like it”. Back then, Fr. Bede
had us sing at our orientation Mass, something I was very nervous about doing
but something I forced myself to do; this was just one of these challenges that
I was prepared to meet. I had no clue what I was doing: I had never sung a piece
of choir music before, I had never been in this very different church before and
here I was, singing with this group before hundreds of my fellow freshmen and
their families. And then something happened; it all started making sense. As I
was making a feeble attempt to sing this beautiful music, I felt like I belonged
to something. I knew that not many of these freshmen could experience what I was
feeling, and believe me, it felt very nice. Though I had just been singing with
the group for a few minutes, for the first time I felt like I needed choir in my
life. The trial period was over; I knew then choir would be a permanent part of
my college years.
For many of us students, our freshman year is the toughest. That
certainly was the case for me. While I spent those months adjusting to my new
life as a college student, I could always depend on my Monday, Wednesday and
Sunday nights to keep me going. I needed choir my freshman year. It gave me a
few hours of peace in a whirlwind year and security in a new hectic life.
Though I became more adjusted and comfortable here my sophomore and
junior years, I still needed choir in my life. As college students, we all have
those weeks that stretch us so far that we feel like we want to give up. My
Monday, Wednesday and Sunday nights sitting in these choir stalls saved me from
those feelings. Those short hours became, as Fr. Bede often referred to them, as
“islands of peace”. Though at times my life as a student became stressful
and straining, my life as a person was being strengthened spiritually by the
graces given to me this choir.
As a senior, I have been able to reflect on these past four years as a
student at this college and as a member of this choir. I am a better person
today because of the education I have received and the life lessons I have
experienced at this college. I am also a better person and a more spiritual
being because of my many hours singing here in the
Abbey
Church
. I simply cannot imagine what my life or my years at this college would be like
without Choir in it. I am going to miss these concerts in my years after I move
on from this college. I am going to miss those Monday, Wednesday and Sunday
night practices after I graduate.
But I will not need choir anymore.
This group, this music, and this director has given me, in these four
short years, the spiritual guidance that I can rely on after I graduate. I now
will always have a little piece of this group in my heart, and that is what I
will turn to from now on, instead of practices and performances. I have grown up
in many ways in these simple wooden seats, from a person who just wasn’t the
choir type, to a person who will be able to rely on this small choir for the
rest of his life.
I have two pieces of advice for my fellow choir members. First, buy and
save the recordings from these concerts. Believe me, you will want them and will
rely on them for many years to come. Remember those CDs that Fr. Bede sent me
before my freshman year, just four short years ago? Well, I still have them, I
still listen to them; and they do more for me than any other music CD in my
collection. Another piece of advice to you all: listen to the words you sing. I
wish someone had told me this when I was a freshman. You will get so much more
out of these concerts and practices if you take a second to understand and
comprehend these beautiful words. I guarantee that you will soon have a favorite
choir song to sing and to pray, a song that is not just based on melody, chords
and harmony but a song based on its words. You will soon realize that you are
not just singing these songs, but that you are praying to God three times a week
in a beautiful church with some of your closest peers. Not many have this
wonderful opportunity, so you must live fully in it. Pray the Ave Maria, Sing
the Our Father. You will soon know exactly what I mean.
You may have been wondering what my favorite choir song is. It came to me
sometime last year, and I have often relied on its words and message since then.
Its music is simple, its length is short but its message is boundless, we have
sung it for you all tonight. Cast Thy Burden:
Cast thy burden upon the Lord,
and He shall sustain thee;
He never will suffer the righteous to fall
He is at thy right hand
Thy mercy, Lord is great
and far above the heav'ns.
Let none be made ashamed
that
wait upon Thee.
Thank you and God Bless you all.
Mike Hennessy '04
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