Sunday evening, the last of the long, hot, 4th of July weekend, a couple friends from our community band and I were lucky enough to attend a Detroit Symphony Orchestra concert held outside at Meadowbrook Hall.
A few minutes before I left home to meet them for a quick dinner before the concert, the skies opened up and rain poured down. It was the first rain all weekend. I was discouraged, but figured at least we’d have a nice meal together and we’d see about the music later.
But even as I walked out to the car it began to clear.
So it was with high hopes and a bit of excitement that we arrived at the venue and found a place to sit in the grass high on the hill overlooking the stage. Of course just as we began to settle in the rain began again.
But once again it blew right through, and with a few gusts of wind the sky began to brighten. Then the music began.
What a wonderful evening! The crowd was happy and appreciative. The weather cooperated. The music was, of course, wonderful. Celebrating John Williams, it was filled with the scores of his many works and as the conductor talked about each piece you could hear the audience anticipate which one would be played next.
We were usually right.
As I listened I thought about Shelley, our community band music director who passed away this past February. She would have loved this concert. What’s not to love? The Detroit Symphony, a group she had season tickets for, a beautiful summer night, families enjoying the music, a beautiful sky overhead, and John Williams.
Perfect.
Toward the end of the program a lesser known score was played, the theme from Far and Away. The movie starred Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman and the music starts off similar to a lot of his movie scores, fast and furious. But the last minute of the 3 minute piece, those last moments, those are sweet.
I smiled because in those moments, with fireflies twinkling and the music soaring into the evening sky, I knew somewhere maybe right overhead and not so far and away, Shelley was smiling too.
And I bet, in fact I’m 100% sure, she enjoyed the concert just as much as we did.
Our community band’s season is coming to an end. We play the last concert this coming Friday, only a few days away, and this one is special. This concert is in memory of Shelley Roland, the music director of our band, who led us for almost two decades. This special woman who was our leader, mentor, and friend died in February after fighting cancer for nine years. So the pieces chosen for this last concert all have some connection to Shelley.
The band sounds great. We’re especially large for this event, because many musicians, friends and past students of hers, have joined us to play music in her honor. I think every section of the band has an extra person or two. And because Shelley was a clarinet player and a teacher, our section went from the four clarinets we had at the last concert to a total of eleven for this one.
All of this is really wonderful, but as we were rehearsing a particular piece last night I suddenly realized why we were playing it and my eyes filled with tears. I need to get the tears under control before Friday night, because I can attest that it’s impossible to play a clarinet and cry at the same time.
Please think about us this Friday evening. It’s going to be hard but beautiful and I can’t think of a better way to honor her memory.
But darn, I better remember to pack my pockets with kleenex.
Last Saturday evening I and some of my fellow Clarkston Community Band members, along with a few hundred other people, attended the Southeastern Michigan Wind Ensemble (SEMWE) spring concert. The talent in this group is stunning, it’s members are mostly current and retired music directors. People who have devoted their entire lives to making and teaching music.
I try not to miss any of their concerts, and I’m certainly glad I went to this one.
It turns out they were honoring two of their group who have passed away, Jennifer Ginther who suddenly died last December, and the other our own CCB music director who died in February of this year. Here we go, I thought, sitting out in the audience, time to focus on not crying.
But their choice of music didn’t make me to cry, not outright anyway. It was beautiful, just the kind of music Shelley would program herself. The first piece, Resplendent Glory by Rossano Galante was so very beautiful and, I think, my favorite of the evening. The link above wasn’t from Saturday’s performance, but it gives you an idea of the uplifting piece that made me smile even though I was sad.
I enjoyed all of the music at Saturday night’s concert, but especially a piece played by one of the middle school teachers, Ross Taylor, on the marimba. He was amazing. You’d have enjoyed it too, Concerto No.2 for Marimba and the Wind Orchestra, Movement 3, by David Gillingham. I could only find movement #1 on YouTube, but you’ll enjoy that movement too, and it’s similar to what we heard.
What a treat! We applauded and applauded…and then we applauded some more when he finished. The poor guy had a hard time getting off the stage, we just kept applauding.
In fact the whole concert was a treat. When I left the auditorium after the program I was still missing my friend, our music director, but I was oh so grateful to have spent time in the presence of other people who also loved her, people making music to honor her and Jennifer from a place deep inside each of their hearts.
Then, leaving the building close to 9:00 p.m., we all gasped in awe. The sky was a brilliant pink and gold. I immediately knew, at least for me, that sky was Shelley saying “Good job! I enjoyed it!” I can hear her voice and see her big, beautiful smile.
I don’t remember when I started playing with the local community band. And when I joined I certainly didn’t expect to still be playing years (maybe more than15 years!) later or how lucky I’d be to form a friendship with the band’s music director.
But it was easy, she was a clarinet player as well as a band director in the public schools. We were similar ages, and had lots of the same interests. She gave me tickets to the Detroit Symphony, took me and others to the Detroit Institute of Art to see the Van Gogh show, invited me over to play with her beloved kitties, made meals for my husband and me when we got Covid the first time.
She gave of herself in ways too numerous to mention. As she did with so many others.
In recent years Shelley has fought cancer, going to treatments and tests but still coming, every Tuesday night, to rehearse a band that on it’s best days can be a handful. We are something of an island for misfit musicians, all with different sets of skills, different levels of commitment, but each of us 100% lovers of making music. When we get it right it is so right, and when we fail, well, we fail spectacularly.
And still she came, every Tuesday night. Arriving early, she was the last one to leave.
At our October concert, “Three Women and a Podium”
When the cancer struck again it became harder for her. She had moved an hour away to be closer to family and her doctors. The trip back to be with us was sometimes long, sometimes impossible. Still, she persisted. When necessary other dedicated music directors stepped in to give her a break.
But we always knew she’d be back. She wasn’t ready to give up her community band.
The last concert she conducted for us was this past October. By Christmas she didn’t have enough stamina to stand on the podium and keep us in line. I texted her after the Christmas concert, her favorite of each year, and gave her a report. We had done well, had a good crowd, we missed her, Santa said hello. She told me she was grieving the loss and missed us too.
She never came back.
Last week at rehearsal we learned she was in hospice at the family’s home. She was receiving visitors and cards and spending time with her grandchildren. This past Tuesday morning she died, her family surrounding her, and music playing.
Of course it was a Tuesday.
In Michigan’s UP on a 3 day trip, where it rained every single day.
Maybe she knew that we’d need each other, as one by one we heard the news. She knew, of course, that there is no better group of people to be with when you’re mourning your music director than the people with whom you share the music.
And so we went to rehearsal. Those of us that knew had a hard time walking into the building, into the band room, looking at the podium. Even though she hadn’t been physically there since last fall, it was still her podium. Those that hadn’t heard the news yet sat in stunned silence as it was announced.
The room was quiet for a moment and then people started sharing stories and we laughed a bit and teared up a bit. And then we did the best thing we could do for ourselves, and for her.
We made music. For a moment the music had stopped. But only for a moment.
Last week I wrote Shelley a letter, thanking her for being a friend, for her advice, for her musical support, for our travels together, for her generosity, for her time and her care. There are so many stories I could tell you about her, and I am just one of hundreds who have stories of her giving to them and their families.
I ended my letter to her by reminding her of the hundreds of students she had mentored over her 30+ years of teaching music in our public schools. Her legacy will go on forever through those students, many who have made sharing music their careers.
I told her she was the stone tossed into quiet water and the ripples she made are still spreading out into the universe. I told her I didn’t think any of us could have a bigger affect on the world than what she’d done with her talent and her love.
A subset of us, playing a pop-up concert during Covid in her neighborhood.
And I asked her if, after she gets settled and has her celestial band warmed up and in tune, if she might look around for a way to let us know she’s OK. I told her I knew she’d be OK, but it would be nice to know.
I expect to be hit over the head with something fantastically musical any day now. And I bet that first concert up there is going to be amazing.
Change Is Hard 