And here it is:

At dinner, I said to the historian, "I'm starting to feel a little panicky about how busy I'm going to be. And how much stuff I have to do."

Well, that feeling's been at bay for a few weeks, and it's just the weekend before the semester starts. Well done, anxiety! Thanks for hanging out somewhere else for awhile.

But it's been a great day even so. I worked this morning quietly for awhile--adapted and spruced up a syllabus, worked out a rough schedule. At one, we went to Jordan High School to hear the Utah Wind Symphony Youth Ensemble play. My niece plays the trumpet in this excellent band.

They played a suite by Holst to begin, and then a gorgeous setting of O Magnum Mysterium by Morton Lauridsen. The gorgeous choir my son sang in at the University did this piece.



When the ensemble first began to play, I recognized, then placed the piece. Without words and without human voice, but with the breath modulated by the reeds and brass, I thought of the many times I had heard my son's choir sing, then of the countless times I've listened to all my children sing. I thought of the choirs I've sung in. I watched the players, all of them in high school, and so I thought also of the small miracle of musicians coming into their own. I thought of the way an instrumental ensemble can swell and fill a room with sound, I felt the sound swell, recognized how it feels in the body to be in that room when the sound surrounds you and blooms. I closed my eyes in the midst of the sound. I thought again of what it would feel like to go to church again and sing. The music thickened, surged around us. The phrases rose and fell and ended.

Something to hold on to in the weeks ahead.

Emendation.

A few posts ago, I said that my favorite concerts of 2009 were

• Regina Spektor
• The Pretenders
• Benny Green (jazz)

but how did I forget my road trip to Vegas with singing son, his wife, his friend, and this guy:

In The Garden - Van Morrison

It was sublime. Even in Vegas.

TAGS: of a lifetime

The stage.

Even this empty stage, blue-lit and breathless, before Rufus Wainwright has come out, is thrilling. More thrilling than many, many things.

Post-concert update: It was beautiful. It was sublime. He played alone--accompanying himself on piano and guitar. He sang "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk," "California," "Grey Gardens," "Going to a Town," "Nobody's Off the Hook," "Sanssouci," "Little Sister," and "Gay Messiah," "Beauty Mark, and "Matinee Idol," with "The Art Teacher" and "Hallelujah" as encores. The venue was perfect and he was perfect. I love his voice, with its edges and resonance, and how wholeheartedly he sings. Not one single disappointment about this concert.