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Page 4 InCider Press December 2006 |
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As I thought about what I might include in my autobiographical sketch, I quickly concluded that my sketch will be the antithesis of those previously published. I didn’t grow up in a home where we routinely gathered around the piano and sang, I didn’t take piano or other musical instrument lessons as a child, I didn’t sing in a college glee club, I am not a second-or third-generation barbershopper, I wasn’t inspired to become a barbershopper based upon my admiration of a given barbershop quartet or chorus, I had never attended a barbershop show prior to singing in one and no-one asked me to attend one of your weekly meetings - - my wife sent me! I am basically a mixed-chorus, church-choir singer who landed in a barbershop chorus. I was born on a small farm in eastern Pennsylvania. My introduction to choir singing occurred when I joined our church’s junior choir probably at the age of 9 or 10; as a teenager I migrated to the senior choir and I have sung in church choirs ever since. During my high-school years I sang with the boys- and mixed-choruses. After high school, college was not financially possible so my singing was limited to singing in the church choir on Sunday morning. My job after graduation from high school was as a printing pressman working a rather unusual shift of 6 p.m. to either 2 or 4 a.m. Working those hours didn’t allow much time for watching TV or attending shows. As a result, I have no recollection of ever hearing a barbershop quartet or chorus sing. I was rescued from working that dreadful shift when I received an invitation from the President of the United States (draft notice) to report for duty in the United States Army in April 1963. Private Bartholomew, at Fort Knox, Kentucky, quickly learned that if he told the chaplain at the Sunday service that he wanted to sing in the choir the next Sunday, he would be excused to attend choir practice on Wednesday evening. An evening away from spit-polishing the barracks surely had appeal and my choir singing suddenly extended from my little country church in Pennsylvania to military chapels scattered around the world. Most of the highlights of my musical background are rooted in military chapels during my 26-year military career; I will expand upon a few. In 1968, I was commanding an artillery battery in Vietnam. My battery occupied a hilltop firebase a considerable distance from the base camps and, whenever possible, a chaplain would arrive via helicopter and we’d have church service. Hymns have never been more meaningful than those we sang while sitting on empty artillery ammunition crates, sometimes under pouring monsoon rain, and usually punctuated by the muzzle blasts of my artillery weapons being fired in support of the maneuver forces in the valleys below. A second highlight was when I attended the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. As usual, I sang regularly in the choir of the main protestant chapel and, as the Christmas season approached, a new opportunity appeared. Our choir director encouraged us to participate in a large, combined choir to sing Handel’s “Messiah” in the College’s main auditorium. What a thrill; I looked forward to the next opportunity to sing the “Messiah.” A third highlight was during our service in Hanau, Germany in the early 80’s. Again, I was a regular member of the church choir and as Christmas approached the choir director mentioned that she very much wanted to be able to take the choir caroling through the various military housing areas. She had learned that I was always up to a challenge, so she suggested that I find a German farmer who would agree to pull us through the neighborhood on either a horse-drawn or tractor-drawn wagon. I couldn’t find the horses but I did (alles auf Deutsch) find a farmer who agreed to pull us with his tractor. The evening could not have been more fairy-tale like. With snow falling softly on our head and shoulders, seated securely on our hay wagon, we traversed the housing areas treating the residents to Christmas music. Christmas carols have never been more special to me than they were that year. The last two highlights stem from our years at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York. The Military Academy is fortunate to have several chapels for the staff and families and a huge, beautiful, Gothic cathedral (the Cadet Chapel) for the cadets. I routinely sang in the protestant chapel where I even had the opportunity to sing an occasional solo. One solo, in particular, ranks high in my musical memory book. At a combined-chapel, outdoor, Easter-sunrise service, on a point that overlooks the Hudson River to the north (Trophy Point), I had the privilege of singing, “I Walked Today Where Jesus Walked.” What a thrill. And, finally, each Christmas the choirs from the chapels on West Point combined with several choirs from local colleges to make up a choir that numbered about 150. This huge choir with a full orchestra performed Handel’s “Messiah” in the beautiful Cadet Chapel. I can still hear those chords reverberating within those high ceilings and arches. Those performances during the four years we served at West Point surely rank as the high point of my choral singing. Continued on page 5 |
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Meet Member Bart Bartholomew |