Georgia Festival Chorus Celebrates "Legacy"

On the evening of Sunday, April 29, the Georgia Festival Chorus performed a program they called "Legacy."  Associate Director David Scott tied "legacy" into Scripture whenever he could, but many of us were there to celebrate the legacy of their founding director Frank Boggs.

I sat with my friend Susan in a row up front reserved for Friends and Family of Frank, so we were among the first to learn that he had fallen just minutes before.  With a sturdy caretaker and a daughter at his side, Frank used a walker to take his seat at the front.

Two-thirds of the way through the program, Frank gripped the walker to stand.  His caretaker, helping, pushed the music stand farther away.  Turning to the caretaker, Frank quipped, "Whose side are you on?"

The songs were mostly sacred texts set to music anytime in the last four hundred years, though the program included a clever piece by Cy Coleman with a gospel feel, and "Danny Boy" -- not a religious song, said David Scott, "but a lot of people feel religious about it." Naturally the program ended, as did all the concerts I performed with Frank my high school director in the 1970s, with Lutkin's "The Lord Bless You and Keep You."

The legacy was all there to see and hear in the performance.  Frank, then his associate and assistant conductors, then his choir, bring out of the music some qualities that I learned from him 40 years ago in high school:

• Dynamic contrast.  There was always power "under the hood" that the conductors saved for special occasions.  "You think you've heard fortissimo?"  I could imagine Frank saying, "You ain't heard nothin' yet!"
• Diction.  Much as Frank taught us to love music, he always emphasized the clarity of the words, and made sure that we related to the words, even when they were in foreign languages.
• Commitment.  These people looked so "into" the songs.  Frank taught us to believe in what we were singing, and to put it across, whether it was Vivaldi or Gershwin.
• Music for the Ages.  Frank with his walker, numerous singers unable to stand, one soloist hobbling to the microphone with a cane -- the chorus is old, but, close your eyes, and you wouldn't be able to tell.  Not a wobble, not a crack, but there's a wall of rich tone in every number.

When I saw the title "Legacy," I wondered if Frank is close to giving up?   I see what he had in mind was the opposite:  Making sure that this kind of music, this kind of chorus, the kind of experience he has provided for singers for decades, will last!

Check out past blogposts about Frank and his chorus:

• Carols By Candlelight (Dec. 2008)  
• Georgia Festival Chorus Presents "Total Praise" (Jun. 2009)
• Education: Drill it In or Tease it Out? (from Oct. 2013, a reflection on teaching methods, featuring Frank Boggs) 
• Georgia Festival Chorus "Carols by Candlelight" (Nov. 2014)
• Frank Boggs Celebrates 71 Years of Song (Apr. 2015)
• Tribute to My Teacher (written around 2005)
• Song parody as tribute, "You Seem to Be So Young", for Frank Boggs at 90